God in Man

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who is a Catholic priest. He is very involved in a community political organisation that works for the rights of poorly paid workers in London. I asked him if he felt any problems working with an organisation run by multi faith and non faith groups. He told he saw no conflict at all and that he saw Jesus in everyone.

Though I am not a Catholic and this is not an exclusively Catholic viewpoint I am impressed by the Catholic view of the Godness of Man. It is a contrast to the saved and unsaved demarcation that can exist in some areas of the church.

Fr Tom said Catholic doctrine says this:

Our resemblance to God lies in our very being; not merely in our memory, understanding and will, but in the totality of what we are. Being an image of God each of us is loved by Him. However far we stray, God wants us to return to Him. In other words each of us has a destiny in God. This is the foundation of the idea that every human being has equal dignity with every other.

Happiness

I was just talking to one of my neighbours. I was saying to her lightheartedly that some people seem to have the gift of being able to make money but I didn’t. She said that as long as I was happy and healthy then that was all that mattered. Fortunately I am both those things.

I have been reading a book called Affluenza by Oliver James.

‘One study ( regarding materialism ) showed that those with materialistic values, such as wanting money or prestige, were far less likely to be religious, and they were unhappier, drank and smoked more, and in the case of women were at greater risk from smoking disorders. Compared with non-believers, the only sort of religious people who are not protected against depression, are ones whose involvement in faith is guided by self seeking end, seeing belief an investment, such as those who think that prayer would be instrumental in making them successful in work or love.

I know the man in this picture, sadly no longer with us in the flesh, and he had it both ways; he was rich and religious. By the way, as you can tell from the photo, he was very happy!!