Day 232: Man is Made in the Image of God

"Christ... in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to light his exalted vocation." It is in Christ, "the image of the invisible God," that man has been created "in the image and likeness" of the Creator. It is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior, that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the grace of God. CCC 1701

In today's reading, the Catechism discusses that man is made in the image of God, as Scripture reveals in Gen 1:26-27, and what that means for us. The Catechism Compendium summarizes what is at the root of human dignity:

The dignity of the human person is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God. Endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, intelligence, and free will, the human person is ordered to God and called in soul and in body to eternal beatitude. (#358)

Because we have been made in God's "image and likeness" and remarkably are the "only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake" (CCC 1703), we are "obliged to follow the moral law" which "makes itself heard in [our] conscience" (CCC 1713). We still desire good, "but [our] nature bears the wound of original sin" and as a result "man is divided in himself," which can only be healed through Christ (CCC 1707).

The Catechism Companion, Vol II has some good commentary on this:

From the very beginning of our existence, from the very moment of our conception, human beings are destined for eternal beatitude, for heaven... Even if a person does not choose heaven, that is what God made us all for - to be united with him for eternity... Though humanity fell through original sin and human beings do evil, in our nature we are still good and want the good. Jesus came to set us free from the Devil and sin so we could live. He earned that for us, and "his grace restores what sin had damaged in us" (CCC 1708). (p. 228)