Today we come to the climax of the creation story we have been reading from the Book of Genesis, as God forms man out of the dust of the ground and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils. And what does this tell us about who we are and what we were meant to be?
Three things:
First, it means that we are not God: we did not make ourselves, but were made. God is our Creator and we are his creatures.
Second it means that we are dust. As our beloved Pope emeritus reminds us: “over and above the distinctions made by culture and by history, over and above every social difference; we are one humanity formed from God’s one earth.”
Third, it means that were made to live by the breath of God. Every human being carries deep within them this life-giving breath, which is why every human life possesses an inviolable dignity, and every human being has been made to love in the image and likeness of the Divine Creator.
Not for ourselves, but for him were we made: from dust and the breath of God.
