Women's Prayer Group In Christ

God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days.

God’s creative order goes beyond what the human mind can conceive; yet, he gives those who love him spiritual light and wisdom.

“The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and infinite. The Creator of the universe perfected his works in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord, intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we cannot even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible world, as Paul teaches us. ‘For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers or virtues or hosts of angels or the dignities of archangels.” -St. Basil the Great

God created man solely out of His goodness.

“God creates man for no other reason than that God is good; and being such, and having this as his reason for entering upon the creation of our nature, he would not exhibit the power of this goodness in an imperfect form, giving our nature some of the things at his disposal and grudging it a share in another: but the perfect form of goodness is here to be seen by his both bringing man into being from nothing and fully supplying him with all good gifts. But since the list of individual good gifts is a long one, it is out of the question to apprehend it numerically. The language of Scripture therefore expresses it concisely by a comprehensive phrase, in saying that man was made ‘in the image of God,’ for this is the same as to say that he made human nature participant in all good; for if the Deity is the fullness of good, and this is his image, then the image finds its resemblance to the archetype in being filled with all good.” -St. Gregory of Nyssa

God created us in his image and likeness: the image given to us; the likeness must be completed on our part.

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” We possess the one by creation; we acquire the other by free will. In the first structure it is given us to be born in the image of God; by free will there is formed in us the being in the likeness of God…. “Let us make man in our image”: Let him possess by creation what is in the image, but let him also become according to the likeness. God has given the power for this. If he had created you also in the likeness, where would your privilege be? Why have you been crowned? And if the Creator had given you everything, how would the kingdom of heaven have opened for you? But it is proper that one part is given you, while the other has been left incomplete: this is so that you might complete it yourself and might be worthy of the reward which comes from God.” -St. Gregory of Nyssa

God created man with thoughtfulness, to show honor.

“This same language was not used for (the creation) of other things. The command was simple when light was created; God said, “let there be light.” Heaven was also made without deliberation…. These, though, were before (the creation of) humans. For humans, there was deliberation. He did not say, as he did when creating other things, “Let there be a human.” See how worthy you are! Your origins are not in an imperative. Instead, God deliberated about the best way to bring to life a creation worthy of honor.” -St Gregory of Nyssa

By the sight of visible things, we are led to contemplate things invisible.

“Since by the sight of visible and sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of invisible things. For, as the Apostle says, ‘the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Romans 1:20.’” -St. Basil the Great

All things are sustained by God’s power.

“If ever you hear in the Psalms, ‘I bear up the pillars of it; see in these pillars the power which sustains it.’ Because what means this other passage, ‘He has founded it upon the sea,’ if not that the water is spread all around the earth? How then can water, the fluid element which flows down every declivity, remain suspended without ever flowing? You do not reflect that the idea of the earth suspended by itself throws your reason into a like but even greater difficulty, since from its nature it is heavier. But let us admit that the earth rests upon itself, or let us say that it rides the waters, we must still remain faithful to thought of true religion and recognize that all is sustained by the Creator’s power. Let us then reply to ourselves, and let us reply to those who ask us upon what support this enormous mass rests, In His hands are the ends of the earth. It is a doctrine as infallible for our own information as profitable for our hearers.” -St. Basil the Great

The mind and soul can attain God as it contemplates Him and is transformed to his image.

“That, therefore, is made to the image of God that is perceived not by the power of the body but by that of the mind. It is that power that beholds the absent and embraces in its vision countries beyond the horizon. Its vision crosses boundaries and gazes intently on what is hidden. In one moment the utmost bounds of the world and its remote secret places are under its ken. God is attained, and Christ is approached. There is a descent into hell, and aloft in the sky there is an ascent into heaven. Hear, then, what Scripture says: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven.’ Is not that, therefore, in which God is everpresent made to the likeness of God? Listen to what the apostle says in that regard: ‘We all, therefore, with faces unveiled, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of God, are being transformed into his very image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord.’” -St. Ambrose

We are all sharers in God’s goodness to different degrees in which we seek Him, the primal good.

“No one doubts that God himself is the primal good. Indeed things can be said to be similar to God in many ways. Some, created in accordance with power and wisdom, are similar to God because uncreated power and wisdom are in him. Other created things are similar to God in the simple fact that they are alive, and God is incomparably alive and the source of life. Other created things are similar to God in that they have being, for God is the highest being and the source of being. And even those things that merely exist and yet do not live or know are in his likeness, not completely but in a slight degree, because even they are good in their own order, while God is incomparably good in a way transcending all other goods and from whom everything good proceeds.” – St. Augustine

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

356: Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”. He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity: What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.

358: God created everything for man, but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to him: What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honor? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his salvation that he did not spare his own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to himself and made him sit at his right hand.

Discussion:

Being created with such honor, dignity and love, how do we show our thanks to God?

How do we show dignity and honor to our neighbor?

“Charity is the sweet and holy bond which links the soul with its Creator: it binds God with man and man with God.”
-Saint Catherine of Siena

“The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas

“My director, Jesus, does not teach me to count my acts, but to do everything for love, to refuse Him nothing, to be pleased when He gives me a chance to prove to Him that I love Him – but all this in peace – in abandonment.”
-St. Therese of Lisieux in a letter to Celine, July 6, 1893

“The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.”
-St. Pope Gregory the Great