The Christian faith regards each and every human being under the sun as being the living

image of God himself. This image culminates itself into the mystery of Christ, who stands as
the perfect image of God – the only divine and human person who reveals God to the human
being and the latter to him. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church, Gaudium et Spes
affirms that, “by His incarnation, the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with
every man” (Gaudium et Spes 22).

God fashions the human being from the earth and blows into his nostrils the breath of life.
God’s very life is deeply infused within the human person. This sublime, solemn yet delicate
act of creation, heralds an extraordinary reality: it is solely thanks to God that the human
person becomes capable of entering into a covenanted communion with His Creator. Now,
the human being has in himself that essential “capacity for God” (homo est Dei capax). This
is possible since his very nature comes from God. That is why St Augustine blatantly
confesses to God, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it
rests in you.”

In the biblical understanding, the human person is intrinsically linked with the earth. The
Hebrew word for both man and the earth is the same: adamah. The human person’s
relationship with God necessarily opens the former to the social reality. As Pope John Paul
stressed very well in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, “in the other, whether man or
woman, there is a reflection of God himself, the definitive goal and fulfilment of every person”
(Evangelium Vitae, 35).

The human person, understood as man and woman, finds his highest fulfillment in the
reciprocal gift of self to the other. This gift is of an immense value and meaning. It shows that
the human person, like God, stoops down from himself and opens an interpersonal dialogue
with others. The hope that such dialogue offers to the human being is that the more he is
able to meet with the face of the other, the more he will enter into a fruitful, reflective and
constructive relationship with himself.

Nowadays’, egoistic tendencies have their beginnings in the original sin. The human person
wanted to take God’s place. Because he disobeyed God, the human person has wilfully
separated himself from God, his only Lord and the fountain and ultimate purpose of his
existence. For the first time in history, the human being experienced both a personal and a
social division. Sin has now pervaded the social domain. That mutual communion between
the human beings, which was the structure of every human relationship, has now been
turned into a hostility, violence, and distance from one another. Thus, as “by virtue of human
solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, (likewise) each
individual’s sin in some way affects others” (Reconciliatio et Paenitentiae, 16).
Being confronted by such an unbearable situation, contrary to his nature, the human person
has never ceased to free himself from the structures of sin he himself created by his actions.
For those who accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour, “a great light … has dawned” on
them (Matt 4, 16). In and through Christ, the human being has been saved once and for all
from the terror of sin and death.

“In him God reconciled man to himself” (Reconciliatio et Paenitentiae, 10). Thanks to the
Son of God made man, the human person has become himself a perpetuating song of
reconciliation, love, solidarity and peace. Hence, the universality of sin has been defeated
once and for all by the universality of salvation brought to the human person by the God-man
Jesus Christ, “the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God
which had been disfigured ever since the first sin”(Redemptor Hominis, 8).

To this basic, yet essential declaration of the Christian faith, the whole creation, freed from
sin, exults in joy and thanksgiving to its saving Lord, precisely because the redemption of its
steward, the human person has taken place. “Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the
skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth, and let it
cause righteousness to spring up also; I the Lord have created it” (Is 45, 8).

Christian anthropology presents five aspects which further elucidate the nature of the human
person: (1) unity of the person; (2) openness to transcendence and uniqueness of the
person; (3) the freedom of the person; (4) the equal dignity of all people; and (5) the social
nature of the human person.

The human being was created by God as one entity, consisting of body and soul (corpore et
anima unus). The soul stands as the form of the physical body. In other words, “it is because
of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living body” (Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 365). On the other hand, the human person “is obliged to regard his body
as good and honourable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day”
(Gaudium et Spes, 14). Therefore, one is to conclude that the union of spirit and matter
within the human person constitutes one nature.

The more the human person enters in himself, the more he realises that he has an eternal
destiny. By virtue of his spiritual and immortal soul, he can talk with God and other people.
He can only understand himself insofar as he is capable of entering a relationship with the
other. Having said that, it needs to be said that communion with God and people does not
diminish the uniqueness and unrepeatability of his nature.

On the contrary. The human person is able of understanding, possessing and determining
himself. It is his personhood, which is his bottom line for being a person, rather than his acts
of the intellect, consciousness or freedom. Consequently, every economic, social or political
activity is duty bound to “work for the benefit of the human person, if the disposition of affairs
is to be subordinate to the personal realm and not contrariwise” (Gaudium et Spes, 26).

Furthermore, authentic progress can only be attained when freedom is responsible

Christian anthropology bases itself on the fundamental commandment of the Jewish Torah –
love of God necessarily implies love of neighbour. “You shall love your neighbour as
yourself” (Matt 22, 39). Speaking within ecclesial circles, St Paul further explicates what
does love of neighbour really mean. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave
nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3,28). The
equality propagated by the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, transcends nationality
and genders.

In view of the Christian vision of humanity, men and women are equally created, saved and
heirs of eternal life, by God, the Father of all. Also, this equality unites the healthy and the
unhealthy, and forms them as one people of mutual respect and solidarity. For Pope John
Paul II, this must be so since, the weak and the sick “need to love and to be loved, they need
tenderness, closeness and intimacy” (message for the International Symposium on the
Dignity and Rights of the Mentally Disabled Persons, of 5 January 2004, 5).

In the disintegrated, hedonistic, lonely and self-seeking postmodern society we are living in,
Christianity fully integrates, incorporates, socialises and widens the horizons of the human
person. It strongly promotes the message that the human being is able of entering into
communion with other people. Ergo, in himself, he is intrinsically social. This is attested to by
two important Church documents, Gaudium et Spes and Libertatis Conscientia, issued by
the Second Vatican Council and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

For Gaudium et Spes, “by his innermost nature man is a social being, and unless he relates
himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential” (Gaudium et Spes, 12).
Likewise, Libertatis Conscientia states that: “God did not create man as a ‘solitary being’ but
wished him to be a ‘social being’. Social life therefore is not exterior to man: he can only
grow and realise his vocation in relation with others” (Libertatis Conscientia, 32). As it turns
out, socialisation is the key for the social, psychological, political, economical and spiritual
well being of the human person. It is what makes him truly who he is.

Lord, you who have created the human person on your venerable and divine image, have
made him little less than you, have crowned him with glory and honour, have given him
dominion over the works of your hands, have put all things under his feet, and continued to
be mindful of him and caring for him; make that he always keeps in his mind and heart that
he finds his fulfilment, dignity and comfort when he rests completely in you. AMEN.