63. What is the place of the human person in creation?

63. What is the place of the human person in creation?

(Comp 63) The human person is the summit of visible creation in as much as he or she is created in the image and likeness of God.

“In Brief”

(CCC 353) God willed the diversity of his creatures and their own particular goodness, their interdependence and their order. He destined all material creatures for the good of the human race. Man, and through him all creation, is destined for the glory of God.

To deepen and explain

(CCC 343) Man is the summit of the Creator's work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other creatures (Cf. Gen 1-26). (CCC 344) There is a solidarity among all creatures arising from the fact that all have the same Creator and are all ordered to his glory: May you be praised, O Lord, in all your creatures, especially brother sun, by whom you give us light for the day; he is beautiful, radiating great splendour, and offering us a symbol of you, the Most High…. May you be praised, my Lord, for sister water, who is very useful and humble, precious and chaste…. May you be praised, my Lord, for sister earth, our mother, who bears and feeds us, and produces the variety of fruits and dappled flowers and grasses…. Praise and bless my Lord, give thanks and serve him in all humility (St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures).

On reflection

(CCC 1939) The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood (Cf. John Paul II, SRS 38-40; CA 10). An error, "today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity" (Pius XII, Summi pontificatus, October 20, 1939; AAS 31 (1939) 423 ff).

(Next question: What kind of bond exists between created things?)