“Lord, what is man that you are made known to him, or the son of man that you value him?” (Ps 143[144]:3). You value him; you make much of him; you esteem him so highly; you arrange things, know below whom you place, above what you place him. Value determining the price of anything. How much has God valued man for him he poured out the blood of his only Son? ... Because you esteem him so much, value him so much, you show that he is something precious. For God does not value a person the way human beings value one another. When a man finds a slave for sale, he may pay more for a horse than for a human being. But see how highly God values you so that you can say, “If God is for us, who is against us?” And how much did he value you? “He did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all. And with him how did he not give us all things? (Rom 8:31-32) If God gave such provisions to the fighting soldier, what has he kept for him when he wins? “I am,” he says, “the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:41). This bread is provision for fighters, brought out from the Lord’s storeroom, from which the angels are fed, because “Man has eaten the bread of angels” (Ps 77[78]:25). But when the battles are over, will he still give these provisions? What will he give to the victorious if not what is spoken of in another Psalm: “One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may contemplate the Lord’s delight, that I, his temple, may be protected” (Ps 26[27]:4)? What is man that you have made yourself known to him, or the son of man that you value him? (EnPs 143[144], 10; PL 37, 1862-63)

Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, professor emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America, is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

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