It Was Very Good

Homily for Tuesday of the 5th Week in Ordinary Time

Over the last couple of days, our first readings have been from the Creation narrative of the Book of Genesis. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Church reminds us of the story of creation as we approach the beginning of the Lenten season, which is now just two weeks away. The Church uses this time to remind us of all of the good things that He has done for humanity.

What Scripture has called us to reflect on yesterday and today is the sacredness of the created world. That God created not out of necessity but out of His wisdom and out of His love. He didn’t have to create anything, but He chose to. And that creation culminated with human beings in His divine image. The human person is the very summit of God’s creation – He crowns the rest of His work by forming the male and female person in His image.

The creation narrative also gives us another important aspect of the human person. While each other stage of creation was “good,” Genesis tells us that after creating humanity, God “found it very good.” It was very good because this creature of His was one that was able to be in relationship with Him. In other words, God created us for one reason – to know Him and love Him and to be in relationship with Him. And originally, humanity was in that perfect state of communion with the Father – Adam and Eve loved God and had unbroken fellowship with Him. They not only lived in a perfect world, but they were in perfect communion with their Creator.

Yet, we know what happened. Eventually, the perfect communion was fractured. Sin entered the world when those creatures that were perfectly created in God’s image and likeness decided to believe that they knew better than God. And since then, all of humanity has been fighting against that very same temptation.

The invitation for us this morning is to ask ourselves in what areas of our lives are we falling into that temptation? Where do we believe that we know better than God? As we approach the Lenten season, pray with these questions. What are those areas of our lives that we do not fully invite the Lord into?

God desires us to be in full communion with Him because that’s how things were originally created to be. Yet, because of our free will, we turn away from Him constantly. But we can change that! This Lent, let’s seek to dive more deeply into how the Lord is calling us into deeper communion with Him. Ask Him over the next couple of weeks, to reveal those areas of our hearts that He wants to heal during this upcoming Lenten season so that we can be in deeper fellowship with Him. God created us to be in perfect relationship with Him. Let’s strive to make that a reality this Lent.

Photo: Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Creation of Adam. Photo by Calvin Craig. Used under Unsplash license.