The Perspective of Justice

Giving Birth to Love

Today we celebrate our knowledge of the mystery of God’s life: one God in three Persons. We know about God’s inner life because it has been revealed to us, but we do not actually know God’s life in the sense of direct knowledge and full understanding.

God is forever other, above and beyond, transcendent.

On the one hand, human beings are nothing compared to that Other: “When I behold your heavens. ... What is man?” On the other hand, humans are reflections of God and are therefore marvelous creatures: “You have crowned him with glory and honor.”

The offenses we commit against God are offenses against the Lord and Master of the universe, the magnificent Triune God whom we will never come to understand.

The inhumanities we commit against each other are likewise offenses against that Other, reflected in human beings.

It is not just some creature that we mistreat and bloody and oppress and ignore: it is the God “who is, who was, and who is to come.”

That should give us some pause.

At the center of the Church's teaching on peace and at the center of all Catholic social teaching are the transcendence of God and the dignity of the human person. The human person is the clearest reflection of God's presence in the world; all of the Church's work in pursuit of both justice and peace is designed to protect and promote the dignity of every person. For each person not only reflects God, but is the expression of God's creative work and the meaning of Christ's redemptive ministry.

U.S. Bishops, The Challenge of Peace, 1983: 15

Gerald Darring

**From Saint Louis University