2. Made For God and For One another
God created human beings in the divine image and likeness.
God gave humanity the whole world to enjoy and the responsibility of being good stewards over all creation.
The only qualification God gave was that the first humans, whom Tradition names Adam and Eve, were to live according to the divine plan of goodness.

3. Yet the first humans chose to give in to the temptation of the “serpent,” a symbol the inspired sacred authors use for the Devil. They allowed themselves to be deceived into thinking that God was deceiving them and keeping something better from them.

4. Their choice, Original Sin, meant that they lost, for themselves and for all their descendants, the very thing they sought and, ironically, the very thing that they had possessed all along—loving communion and friendship with God, with one another and with all creation.

6. God’s Steadfast Loyalty
God confronted the serpent and made the promise, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

7. The Church has long interpreted this verse of Scripture , known as the Protoevangelium, to be the initial promise of the Messiah, Savior and Redeemer, whom God would send to crush the power of evil, save humanity from the power that Original Sin has over us, and reconcile us with our Creator.

8. God fulfilled this promise through the Blessed Virgin Mary and through the birth, life, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of her offspring, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God.

9. Beatitude Beatitude: Happiness or blessedness, especially the eternal
happiness of heaven, which is described as the
vision of God, or entering into God’s rest by those
whom He makes “partakers of the divine nature.”
—Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary

10. Heaven:
Heaven is “eternal life with God; communion of life and love with the Trinity and all the blessed. Heaven is the state of supreme and definitive happiness, the goal of the deepest longings of humanity” (CCC, Glossary).

11. Theosis: Partakers in Divine Life
“God became human so that people might become more like God” (St. Augustine).
Tradition in the Church in the East uses the terms theosis, or deification, to name this truth of our faith: the human transformation into God-likeness.
God is a Trinitarian communio, or communion, of perfect love.
God desires for us, whom he created in the image of that communion of love, to share in the life and love of the Triune God.

12. Made One with God in Christ
Through the mystery of the Incarnation the Son of God became fully human without losing, in any way, the fullness of his divinity.
Because he was fully human Jesus could freely choose to sacrifice his life out of love for God and make expiation for the sin of humanity.
By his obedient love Jesus redeemed us and made atonement for our sin by the pouring out of his blood on the Cross.
Through the Redeemer’s dying and rising from the dead we have been reborn to newness of life and restored to living in holiness and justice.

13. God’s Prodigal Love for Us
The term “prodigal” can mean both “wasteful” and “extravagant.”
Where the younger son is wasteful in the use of his inheritance, the father is extravagant in the love he has for his son.
The father in the parable is an image for God.
The prodigal son is an image for ourselves.
When we sin and turn our back on God’s love, God longs for our return. He desires to embrace us when we repent and return home.

14. Society Society: A society is a group of persons
bound together organically by a
principle of unity that goes beyond
each one of them.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1880
God created human beings to be inherently social creatures and to live in society.
Human beings living in a society combine their individual efforts and talents to create something greater than any one individual person could create alone.

15. St. Alphonsus de Liguori
Alphonsus de Liguori was born into a noble family on September 27, 1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy.
His family was very religious, and from a young age Alphonsus went on retreats with his father.
Alphonsus had his own legal practice by the age of twenty-one and soon became one of the leading lawyers in Naples.
He declined an arranged marriage, began to study theology, and was ordained at the age of twenty-nine against the wishes of his family.

16. St. Alphonsus de Liguori (continued)
Alphonsus founded the Redemptoristine women’s order in 1730 and the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) in 1732.
He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI, and Pope Pius IX proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church in 1871.
One of the most widely read Catholic authors, Alphonsus de Liguori is the patron of confessors, moral theologians and the lay apostolate.