How dignifying God is to us. In the second reading from Mass this weekend, St. Paul speaks of the reality that each Christian is a member of the Body of Christ. All of us are parts of the whole, members of the one Body of Christ, and necessary. No one of us is not intended by God. In his inaugural homily as Pope, Benedict XVI proclaimed that "each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." If God has made us members of the Body of His Beloved Son, what a great honor that is. Even if we doubt our importance, or at least our importance compared to others, nonetheless God thinks we are quite important. St. Paul says that it would not be right for a foot to say it does not belong to the body because it is not a hand, or that an ear does not belong because it is not an eye. "If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?"
In God's eyes all of us are needed and important. We are not the same and we do not all have the same gifts or abilities, but that's okay. And not just okay, but good. In her autobiography, St. Therese of Lisieux, spoke of this reality using the image of a garden:
"Jesus deigned to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature; I understood how all the flowers he has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers. And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus' garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but he has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God's glances when he looks down at his feet. Perfection consists in doing his will, in being what he wills us to be." Consider taking some time this week to reread this passage from St. Paul (1 Corinthians 12:12-30) and sit with it, pondering with the Lord how he has made each of us and how we might live more fully into our God-given dignity.