Our Holy Father Andrew the Jerusalemite, Archbishop of Crete (740); Venerable Martha, Mother of the Holy Simeon of the ‘Mountain of Wonders’
Romans 8:14-21; Matthew 9:9-13
Read Romans 8:14-21
In Christ, we are united with God and it is through this relationship that we acquire our inherent human dignity. We cannot lose this dignity. Our dignity is not bound up with our external propriety. What is even more important to emphasize is that when we suffer we do not lose our dignity. Too often in today’s hyper-individualist world people have been convinced that when they suffer they lack dignity. This is a grave lie because we know that all creation will be set free “from its bondage to decay” and we ourselves have been set free through and in Christ.
Last year the Canadian Christian think-tank Cardus published through the Cardus Religious Freedom Institute a commentary on human dignity Who Are You: Reaffirming Human Dignity. The following excerpt helps to illustrate why our human dignity is inviolable:
It is possible to make choices that display or that obscure, even contradict, your dignity. That is why we can speak of dignified and undignified behaviour. But as the dignity of your human nature is a gift bestowed by God, that is always yours. It is not possible to lose that sort of dignity, even by a decline in ability to do things, physical strength or beauty, or keenness of intellect. You do not have less dignity when you suffer, for suffering does not rob you of what belongs to your nature but may even serve to draw out its greatness and beauty. Suffering can be very difficult to endure, whether in ourselves or in those close to us. A human being has infinite worth because we are created in the image and likeness of God, which is much more than a physical or intellectual reality. There is unity between us as members of the human family, and we are in solidarity with one another, even more so where a fellow human being is suffering. But suffering can teach us much about dignity. It teaches us about the deep value of virtues such as patience, obedience, endurance, hope, and trust—all of which are unique to us as human beings.
(Excerpted from Andrew Bennett and Aaron Neil, Who Are You: Reaffirming Human Dignity. Ottawa: Cardus, 2019, p. 11)