Chronicle, January 30

The third day of the I Congress of Sodalit Spirituality began with an opening prayer in the National Museum where thousands of members of the Sodalit Family continue to gather.

The program continued with the illuminating conference given by Cesar Olivares, member of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, entitled "The human person, created in the image and likeness of God." The conference highlighted the significance and reach of "image and likeness," two terms which are of great importance in order to understand who the human person is in the light of Revelation and what his relationship with his Creator is.

Cesar explained that although image and likeness are complementary, each term has its own specific meaning. "Image is a more static and individual concept that designates a reality in as much as it is a representation and participates of the qualities of another reality, which is its model. On the other hand likeness is a more dynamic and relational concept which refers to the relationship itself between the two realities.

"The image of God," he continued, "is so essential to the human person that we can say it conforms his ontological base, his most nuclear reality." Developing his ideas, he affirmed that "the creation of the human being in the image and likeness of God was from the beginning not only a call to existence but a call to reproduce that Image that is Christ, participating in Him in the Divine Communion of Love." Cesar explained that this is why the person reflects "this mystery of love in himself," in relation with his human brothers and sisters, and in cooperating with God in the work of creation, taking it to its perfection in Christ.

Deepening as well in the subject of likeness, he sustained that its root is in "communion with God from within ones most intimate depths" and that from there it projects itself and transforms the person on all the levels of relationship. In this sense he emphasized that the initiative is always from God, who loved us first and who goes to the encounter of the person, but the persons self-realization does not happen without his free cooperation.
During the break the congress participants had the chance to take in a varied and interesting exhibition of paintings which was on show in one of the rooms conditioned for the Congress, with the works of various members of our spiritual family, Miguel Alfaro, Rodrigo Banda, Vicente López de Romaña and Javier Rodríguez among them.

The reflections of the second part of the day were centered around the trial vision of man by means of panels whose subjects followed on from those dealt with yesterday. In the first of them entitled "The trial vision of man in some Patristic representatives," Julio Egrejas, member of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, underscored the contributions to the subject of Saint Ireneus of Lyon, Origen, and Saint Augustine, along with the Syrian School.

Before an attentive audience Julio indicated that "the horizon of the differences implies a complementarity between the perspectives and not an contraposition since at the core the unifying elements of the different interpretations are always found."

The next panelist, Ana Lucía Montoya, member of the Marian Community of Reconciliation spoke on the subject of the "Trial vision of the human being during the XII and XIII centuries," in which she dwelled on the trial vision of man in the Cistercian monastic schools and in the school of Saint Victor, as well as on the scholastic theology of Saint Thomas of Aquinas and that of Saint Bonaventure.

Ana Lucía explained that it is possible to find a distinction between the soul and the spirit in man, in a particular way at the moment of explaining the relationship of man with God. "Nonetheless, this distinction does not obtain on a substantial level but rather on one of operations. The highest operation in man, founded in his being created in the image and likeness of God, would be the spiritual operation. This operation enjoys a certain independence in relation to the body and is distinguished from rational activity as such."

The final day of the Congress will contain three conferences: "Sin, anthropological key," "The Lord Jesus, Reconciler and revealer of the human person," and "The human person and his free cooperation with grace." It will also contain two panels: "The approach to the human person in some spiritual authors between the XV and XVII centuries," and "The trial vision of man in some contemporary authors."

(The present texts are recorded extracts and cannot be considered as official versions of the expositors.)