NOTES for Gen 1:24-31
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. |
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. |
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. |
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. |
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. |
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. |
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. |
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. |
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Today we read words very dear to us about our likeness to our Creator. We are created in His likeness; His image is imprinted in us. At this thought the heart rejoices and strength for life increases. This is surely the highest of all truths. But let us think about why the Church offers us these words to remember precisely now, now when we stand at the doors of Great Lent, a time of repentant prayer in which, on the contrary, we must recognize our complete insignificance, sinfulness, and fallenness.
Remember how the Lord exclaims indignantly in the Psalter: "You thought wickedly that I would be like you." We were created in His likeness, but now He does not want to be like us. Have we squandered this likeness? Yes. And we understand this. "Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the highest heavens; You have done great things; O God, who is like You?" (Ps 70:19) Neither among the gods nor among the sons of God is there now anyone like God (Ps 88:7).
And still, no one has canceled the words about likeness. On the contrary, the Church reminds us of them now. There is enormous tension, stretched almost to the breaking point like a string between heaven and earth, between these two poles: likeness and unlikeness. But this is exactly what distinguishes our faith from Greek or Roman mythology, where the gods are created in the image of man. And in this very tension lies the essence of the fast.
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Readings for 25 February 2026
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