Significado de expressões e frases bíblicas enigmáticas
       "Imagem e Semelhança de Deus"
             SUPLEMENTO: Revelações privadas de videntes católicos sobre sermos feitos "à Imagem e Semelhança de Deus" (Não reconhecidas oficialmente pela Igreja)
                   Revelação da vidente Maria Valtorta

 A imagem e semelhança com Deus é espiritual, não física, e refere-se à capacidade de amar, de sermos filhos de Deus a ponto de sermos deificados

Jesus says: ^[...] "What is man? The Catechism says, ‘A creature endowed with reason composed of soul and body.’
"What is the soul? The Catechism says, ‘The noblest part of man because it is a spiritual substance endowed with intellect and will, capable of knowing God and possessing Him eternally.’
"Who created man? The Catechism says, ‘God created him.’
"Why did He create him? The Catechism says, ‘So that man may know, love, and serve Him in this life and enjoy Him in the other forever.’
"How did He create him? Genesis 2:7 says, ‘And the Lord formed man from the mud of the earth and breathed the breath of life into life, and man became a living creature.’ And Genesis 1:27 says, ‘God created man in his image.’ The Catechism confirms, ‘Man was created in the image and likeness of God.’
"And how? Perhaps in his face? In the shape of his body? God does not have a body or a face.
To become man I had to take on your shape, for I had no bodily shape of my own. God is most perfect Spirit — simple, eternal, with no beginning or end. The Catechism thus teaches that ‘man is said to have been created in the image and likeness of God , for the human soul is spiritual and endowed with reason, free in its working, capable of knowing and loving God and of enjoying Him eternally — perfections which in man reflect a ray of the infinite greatness of the Lord.’
"A ray of the infinite greatness of the Lord. A great truth, since only We, as Triune, know Ourselves and enjoy Ourselves with the fullness of joy, generating Ourselves through this joyful love, which is knowledge of our most perfect Perfection. And We wanted you to have Us as an example to create in you the divinized creature that is man as a son of God. For this reason we placed Love in you, which is our Essence, and we proposed Love as the goal of Perfection in order for you to come to be with Us without end, just as you were in Us before Creation existed ^{[in God's plans]}, when We contemplated you, before you emerged from nothingness, so as to be, according to our will, the creature in whom God, who divinely conceived this creature for his glory, is reflected. Now, in God there can be nothing except what pertains to God. Man thus belongs to God and in full justice can call Him ‘Father’ and in right and proper justice must want to reach and possess Him after having striven to love Him and know Him.
"Blessed are those who are able to ascend to the summit of blessedness, which is union with God — that is, knowledge of God, fusion with Love, contemplation of the Trinity, which is One, of the Fire that does not consume, but recreates and supercreates, making the human creature what he was conceived to be by Love: a god who is a son of God. The Father has truly placed the seal of his paternity in his son: the capacity to know and love God, in both this life and the next.
"God, then, created man as composed of two substances, one called the body — initially created with mud and subsequently procreated with the flesh and blood of man — and one called the soul, which, uniquely created in each case, only once and for one flesh, descends to unite itself to the flesh forming in a womb. Without the soul man would be an animal creature guided by instinct and natural gifts. Without the body man would be a spiritual creature with the supernatural gifts of intelligence, will, and grace, like the angels.
"In addition to existence, what had God given to the masterwork of creation, represented by man, in whom the two creatures, animal and spiritual, are joined? Gratuitous gifts which theologians divide into natural, preternatural, and supernatural.
"Natural: a healthy, beautiful body, with five perfect senses and a rational soul endowed with intelligence, will, and freedom.
"Preternatural: integrity — that is, the perfect subject of sense, free from incitements of every kind, to reason; the immortality of the body, which would not have experienced the horror of death; immunity from all pain; and knowledge in keeping with his state as a chosen creature and thus great knowledge, which his perfect intellect assimilated without effort.
"Supernatural: the beatific vision of God, the Grace making man a son of God, and the destiny of enjoying God eternally.
"Man, then, by virtue of both his origin and the gifts received, could truly call himself a ‘son of God’ and know Him as a son knows his father.
"What is Grace? The Catechism says, ‘Grace is a supernatural gift which illumines the mind and moves and comforts the will so that man will do good and refrain from evil.’ But it is love, above all. God’s Love for his favorite creature, who is man, a love elevating the creature to the nature of the Creator through deification, in such fashion that the words of Wisdom are fitting: ‘You are gods and sons of the Most High.’ It is, moreover, a means of salvation, since man needs means of salvation, having remained weak through the consequences of sin.

  Vide também Vida e Obra de Maria Valtorta

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Nota sobre a fonte: Maria Valtorta foi uma mística católica italiana. Durante sua vida, ela foi agraciada com revelações de Jesus Cristo sobre o Evangelho, e também de Nossa Senhora, do Espírito Santo e de vários santos e anjos.