26 September, Monday — When God is made in the image and likeness of man

Sep 26 – Memorial for Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs

Sts. Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers, physicians who accepted no payment. Their charity brought many to Christ. Although they were tortured during the persecutions of Diocletian, the two suffered no injury.

• Patron Saint Index

Job 1:6-22
Lk 9:46-50

…and among them was Satan. So the LORD said to Satan, “Where have you been?” “Round the earth,” he answered, “roaming about.” 

When God is made in the image and likeness of man:

…God is no longer an end in Himself, but merely a means to an end;

…Man is no longer created to serve God, but that God is created to serve Man.

…faith and religion are no longer man’s path to salvation, but are used instead to justify his life on earth, including and especially the evil he chooses to commit “in God’s name”;

…salvation is measured not in how an individual dies to himself for the love of God and fellow man, but how God must “die” so that other men can serve him;

…man sees that his salvation is ‘assured’ by his earthly success, prosperity, wealth, power, prestige as proof that his place in heaven is a done deal – regardless of how sinful, ignoble, selfish, immoral, deceitful, shameless and vulgar that earthly existence was.

…man worships, not at the altar of God, but at the altars of his car, condo, credit card, company, corporate tile, country club, cash and credit limit in his bank account;

…the Word of God becomes the basis of all moral and spiritual authority on earth – and precedes, supplants and ‘justifies’ the absence of good works, actions, sacrifices and genuine love for his fellow man.

…when worship is nothing more than performance art done on a stage, to keep congregations entertained so as to open their wallets to contribute to a ‘good show’ being put up, rather than the true worship, glorification, and honour of God at His sacred altar.

…when standing up, calling out and naming evil and voicing out in defense of morality, social justice, truth in denouncing evil and lies, is seen as an affront to ‘popular sensibilities’, of ‘rocking the boat’, of causing ‘divisiveness’ and of not being the ‘Christian’ thing to do.

…truth is sacrificed at the altar of greed, hypocrisy, manipulation, selfishness, divisiveness, foolishness and stupidity.

…when a man ‘prays’ at the ‘altar’ before his ‘god’, then steps out of his church and goes out to destroy lives, kill babies, murder the elderly and defenseless, rape women and to spew lies, hatred, violence and division.

…when like Lucifer, man’s ego, vanity, pride and selfishness supersede his subservience to God’s virtue, morality, humility and selflessness.

…when Christianity is no longer for the fervent and courageous, as exemplified by countless Catholic martyrs and saints over the millennium but for the subservient, the hypocritical and the cowardly, who place their faith in greed and in popular culture and in the worship of Mammon and cult personalities in place of the worship of the one true God.

When God is made in the image and likeness of man…

…He is no longer God.

He becomes a monstrosity.

The monstrosity that is man.

Man, that is no longer made in the image and likeness of God.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Justus Teo) 

Prayer: Father, help us. We live in a world and in a faith so corrupted and broken by the spirit of worldliness, secularism, individualism, hypocrisy and selfishness.

Thanksgiving: Father, thank you for the gift of the Holy Catholic Church, the gift of our Holy Catholic faith and the gift of our true Holy Catholic worship.