Apostleship of Prayer Spirituality IMAGES OF GOD ( continued)

From the various conversations that I have had over the last month about this short article on the Images of God I shall try to develop the ideas a little further. I do welcome your letters about what is written here. To see what are the images of God that we have we must enter most sincerely into our prayer in a contemplative way. Contemplative prayer is the way of personal transformation which , let us be honest, all of us resist. We are all comfortable with the Images of God that have been given to us many years ago. In the thought of St. Paul we are all to be reformed in the image of God in which we are created: " And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is Spirit." ( 2 Cor. 3:18)
        Our first images of God come from our early childhood. Our parents talk to us about God being Our Father. We accept this. so we "see" God in the image that is given to us by our own father. Now as we are reared in our families we receive many images of God from the ways our parents, teachers, and friends talk about this God that we are told that we should adore. Some of us stay with these images and they influence our behaviour and our thoughts. Now as we grow older, these images need to grow and develop also. But for some of us we hang quite strongly onto these images. Thus our God may seem to others to be not the kind of God that they would like to worship.
        If we are created in the image and likeness of God then ultimately we need to have a good look at ourselves if we are to find an image of God that is adequate for us. If we are able to focus on ourselves then we are able to pursue a path of integration much more easily than if we focus on other images. If we are made in the image of God then we cannot separate the images that we have of our selves from the images that we have of God. This searching for an image of ourselves should not foster a sterile introspection but rather it should lead to an unveiling of the truth about oneself and to a humility which springs from a revealed knowledge of whom we are in ourselves. Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit".  We are poor in spirit when we acknowledge that we are just sinful creatures created by God out of love in his image and likeness.
        So what is our image of God? Perhaps you may like to explore within yourselves to find your own personal image of God and share it with us here in the Apostleship of Prayer.

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