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| "This decision [to create Man in God's own image of self-emptying love] contains within it all the risk and expectation of self-giving love, but will they accept and respond?" |
But in this first creation [of the world,] the Blessed Trinity is hidden from sight. From its very beginning the tradition is the mystery of a love that is pierced. The Father gives himself, but who receives him? His word is given, but who answers? His Spirit is poured out, but not yet shared. Creation is pure gift, but one that still awaits acceptance. We often fail to reflect that in this beginning the living God experiencces his first "kenosis": his love reveals itself there, but in the shadow of a promise to which no attention is paid.
Then man appears. It is because God is holy that he calls the man to be "his image". This unique creature, with its male and female forms, is essentially proposed and not thrust into being; it is the only creature that is not "made" but must always eb born; it is the locus of the living God's most far-reaching kenosis because it is the treasure he most loves. In the liturgical poem that describes the creation of man, God does not say, "Let there be men!" as he does for all other creatures. He says, rather, "Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves" (Gen 1:26). This decision contains within it all the risk and expectation of self-giving love: men are called into existence, but will they accept and respond? Will they gaze back into the adorable face of God.
In the river of life there is a current of tenderness, an incomparable element of attraction. The energy of the holy God, his communion of love, is permeated by an impatient desire, a passion: "to be with the children of men" (Prov 8:31). At the origin of the human person--of each and every human being--there is this outpouring of love within the Trinity, a pierced love that calls us to life: from the gaze of the Father in his beloved Son there springs up God's thirst, his thirst for men. Thus too, in the very beginning man's nostalgia for God is born. But many stages must yet be travelled before we reach the side of the well where the Word waits for us...
The Wellspring of Worship: Jean Corbon (Ignatius, 2005) ISBN 1586170228
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