Читать книгу On Sins and Virtues - Любомир Гузар - Страница 11

Dignity is what we received from God. A sense of truth is one of its main features. Dignity is not what we thought up for ourselves or ascribed to ourselves. Because it is a manifestation of human nature – of the divine inside us.

Dignity is connected with the perception and awareness of our origin. Our divine origine… Some can take pride in originating from a princely family. But that is another matter.. Dignity has to do, first and foremost, with belonging to the divine. Because man is created in the image and likeness of God.

God gives us the gift of life through our parents, our vocation and talents, and through the gift of the Holy faith.

The Revolution of Dignity also has to do with this important sense of awareness. Ordinary people realized who they are and which rights they are vested with – because they originate from God. Human dignity is inseparably connected to the awareness that a human being is the creation of God.

Dignity.

Yaroslav Murafa, 10 years old, Halych (Ivano-Frankivsk region)

We often say about somebody: he behaves with dignity… It means that the mentioned person is aware of their dignity.

Dignity is not to be confused with pride or even haughtiness – this is about a person who believes he is unique in the world and that there is noone like him, and will never be.

Dignity is not pride. It is not like “I am too good and deserving to do things like that…” No, it is like “I am a human being, a creation of God, endowed with the God’s gifts, I am aware of my dignity, so I behave in a way not to offend others by saying “I am a lord and you are a fool”.

For example, Metropolitan Sheptytskyi could talk to anyone. To high ranking officials, to nobles and ordinary peasants and labourers. He respected everyone. And all of them while talking to him were aware: he regards me as a human being.

The gift of mind, the gift of will and of freedom given to us by God – they all are part of human nature. And we are all happy to have those gifts – each of us is endowed with them. There is no man who isn’t endowed with them. Since I am a human being, I have all the gifts that God gives to everyone.

One of our Lord’s commandments says: you shall love your neighbour as yourself. To love one’s neighbour as oneself means to see in them the same dignity I have in myself, since I am happy to know that I originate from God and I live by His will because it was Him who created me. Likewise, He created all others.

Those two conformable words “self-esteem” and “selfishness” which are about a “love for oneself” have nothing to do with the love Jesus Christ spoke about. These notions refer to the ones who gratify themselves, pander to themselves, and treat themselves with too much indulgence. But the love that Jesus Christ appointed to us – is nothing else but the sense of dignity.

A person can be born at the royal court or in a peasant hut. It makes no difference because both of them are of the divine origin and are endowed with dignity which is to be respected.