At the end of one of my talks to a lay group on heroic charity and sanctity, one of the attendees said to me, “You know, Father, I just cannot practice such selfless charity. Jesus can do so because He is God, but I am only human.” I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that last line.
Yes, we will always be human. We can never be divine like Jesus. We aren’t pure spirit like the angels. But how true is it that we are only human? Are we left at the mercy of our natural powers alone? We will surely feel that heroic charity and sanctity are impossible for us when we come to see ourselves as only human, equipped only with our natural, sin-inclined, wounded faculties of intellect, will, and emotions.
But St. Paul says otherwise. Explaining how we are not “only human,” he writes:
The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit . . . The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven . . . Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one. (1 Cor. 15:45-49)
The Apostle to the Gentiles is reminding us that, although we are human as descendants of Adam, in Jesus Christ, the last Adam, we have been remade to bear in us the very image of Christ, the One who loved us till the point of death to share His life with us.
This image of Christ in us transforms and inspires us to bring life to others and, in doing so, share in His glory. St. Paul teaches, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Though we will always be human, by bearing Christ’s image, we can love others in a way that communicates spiritual life to them, just as He did. Because we share in His nature, we can become channels of life to others by our love for His sake. So, in Jesus Christ, we are definitely not only human. From the moment of baptism, Jesus invites us to share in His radical love for others on account of our bearing His image—an image which allows us to share in the love of the Spirit.
Unless we see ourselves as humans bearing the very image of Jesus within us, we cannot “love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us.” How in the world can we hope to do so when we see ourselves as only human?
This lie that we are only human has great implications for our spiritual life and eternal destiny. The devil has been using this lie to enslave many of the faithful today who tend to forget or ignore the reality of our new nature in Christ and the power that we have for Christ-like, life-giving action.
We cannot overcome our selfishness when we believe that we are only human. We cannot overcome our natural drives for pleasure, power, and material gains. We cannot practice heroic charity because we will do things only when we are guaranteed to get something favorable in return. We cannot practice any form of delayed gratification because satisfying our natural desires becomes the ultimate goal of our lives. We cannot turn the other cheek when hurt by others or go the extra mile in service to others because we feel that this is too demanding of our poor humanity. We will be overcome by malice, discrimination, and revenge because we see ourselves as only human.
We also cannot resist temptations when we believe that we are only human. The devil will lie to us that our sinful choices are inevitable or even “beneficial” for us in meeting our human needs. He will lie to us that it is futile to resist his temptations. Because we are negligent of the powerful life-giving image of Jesus that we bear within us, we easily lose hope in the battle against sin. We easily justify our sins because we say to ourselves, “What can I do? I am only human.” There is no act of sin and selfishness that is beyond us when we believe the lie that we are only human. Sadly, the more that we give in to sin, the more that we lose the sense of Christ’s image within us, and the more we buy into the lie.
We cannot endure suffering when we see ourselves as only human. The image of Jesus in us is both a pledge of future glory and a guarantee of God’s undying love for us in the present moment. But when we are oblivious about this image within us, we begin to doubt God’s love for us and question the very purpose of our lives. Our pains and suffering make us feel hopelessly estranged from God because we are not in spiritual contact with the image of the suffering, loving, risen Savior within us. How can we hope to love others selflessly in our pains when we doubt God’s unconditional love for us all?
Ultimately, the lie that we are only human destroys that inner joy and hope that Jesus promised us when we love like Him. As the gospels record, “Your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Lk. 6:27-38). We lose all joy when we give in to selfishness because we believe we are only human.
There are three action steps that we can take to abandon the lie that we are only human and begin to live as bearers of the Christ-image today.
Firstly, repent daily of our selfishness by gazing at a crucifix with love. Let us remind ourselves Who hangs on the cross and for whom He hangs on that cross. Imagine Him inviting us to bring our selfishness to Him on the cross and receive from Him His own selfless love for others for His sake. The more that we hold onto our selfishness, the more we convince ourselves that we are only human and that selfless love is beyond our ability.
Secondly, make regular acts of faith that we bear the image of Jesus within us today. We cannot feel the reality of this image, but we believe because of the Word of God. We must firmly believe that God has not called us to be only human but He has “predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
Lastly, let us beg our Eucharistic Lord to deepen the reality of His image within us. Jesus never ceases to refashion us in His image. This is what He does in the Eucharist—He shares His life with us and molds us into better images of Himself, thus enabling us to share in His own loving and life-giving deeds.
Let us relentlessly renounce the lie that we are only human so that the image of Christ in us becomes the living principle of all our actions. This is the only way that we can love others through selfless deeds that nurture the life of Christ in souls.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
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