Week of September 13, 2026

This Week in Sacred Scripture

Genesis chapter 1 – Through Him All Things Were Made

The Bishop’s Teaching

IN THE BEGINNING

Today we begin a journey together through Sacred Scripture. There could be no better place to begin than where the Word of God itself begins: “In the beginning God created heaven, and earth” (Genesis 1:1).

Before Abraham. Before Moses. Before Israel. Before Bethlehem. Before the Cross and the empty tomb. GOD IS. Everything else that exists receives its existence from Him.

Before we begin our journey, however, I want us to understand how we will approach Sacred Scripture together. We will read it as Catholics. We do not approach the Bible as though it had simply been placed into our individual hands for each of us to determine its meaning for ourselves.

Sacred Scripture has been entrusted to the Church. We receive it within the same living faith in which it has been proclaimed, prayed, taught, and handed down from the Apostles. We will therefore read Sacred Scripture within Sacred Tradition and in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church.

We will listen to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church who contemplated these same words centuries before us. We will allow Scripture to illuminate Scripture, because the same God is the author of both Testaments and His saving plan possesses a profound unity. And above all, we will look continually toward Jesus Christ.

For Sacred Scripture tells one great history of salvation, and at the center of that history stands a Person: Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

So let us begin:

READ

This week, I ask you to read Genesis 1:1-31. Read it slowly. Perhaps read it more than once. And before asking questions of the text, allow the text to speak to you. Listen for its rhythm.

Again and again we hear: “And God said …” God speaks, and creation responds to His command.

At the beginning, God says: “Be light made.” And Sacred Scripture tells us: “And light was made” (Genesis 1:3). Then comes another refrain: “And God saw that it was good.” Light and darkness. The firmament and the waters. The earth and its vegetation. The lights of the heavens. The creatures of the waters and the birds of the air. The living creatures upon the earth. Everything receives its existence according to the wisdom and command of God.

Then the account reaches the creation of man, and something changes. God says: “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). And then: “And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Finally, God looks upon everything He has made: “And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31). Hold onto those words: They were very good. We will need to remember them when we read Genesis 3.

Before Sacred Scripture tells us about the fall of man, it tells us about creation. Before it tells us what went wrong, it tells us what God made good. Before we encounter the serpent, we encounter the Creator.

WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES

The opening words of Genesis reveal truths that stand at the foundation of the Catholic faith: “In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.” Everything begins with God. God does not belong to creation. He does not depend upon creation. Creation does not complete something lacking in Him.

The one true God freely creates all that exists. Everything apart from God receives its existence from Him. He is the Creator. We are His creatures. This distinction must remain at the foundation of everything that follows. It is the faith we profess in the Creed: God is the almighty Father, Creator of all things visible and invisible.

Creation is Good. Genesis repeatedly tells us that God sees His creation as good. This matters profoundly. The Catholic faith does not teach us to despise the material world. Matter is not evil. The human body is not evil. The created world is not the product of an evil power. Creation comes from God.

Something will indeed go terribly wrong in the history of man. Sin will enter. Suffering and death will enter human history. Man’s relationship with God, with himself, with his neighbor, and with creation will be wounded. But evil is not where the story begins. Goodness is.

God created. And God saw that His creation was good. Created in the image of God. Then Genesis reveals something extraordinary concerning man: “Let us make man to our image and likeness.” And “God created man in his own image.”

Every human person therefore possesses a dignity received from God. That dignity does not originate with the state. It does not depend upon wealth, intelligence, physical ability, health, independence, usefulness, age, social standing, or power. We do not manufacture human dignity. We receive it from our Creator.

This truth has consequences for the way a Christian sees every human life: the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the poor, the forgotten, the powerful and the powerless. It even changes the way we must look upon the person whom we find most difficult to love. The Christian must remember: This person, too, has been created by God and bears His image.

Sacred Scripture tells us: “Male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Man and woman share the dignity of being created in God’s image. Their distinction is not presented as an evil or meaningless accident. It belongs to the goodness of God’s creation.

And God blesses them: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). We will not attempt to say everything about this today. Genesis 2 will allow us to contemplate much more deeply the creation of man and woman, their communion with one another, and the mystery of marriage.

For now, let us receive what Scripture gives us. We are creatures. We are created by God. We are created in His image and likeness. Male and female He created us. And what God created was very good.

SCRIPTURE ILLUMINATES SCRIPTURE

Now let us do something that we will do throughout this journey. Let us allow Sacred Scripture itself to illuminate what we have just read.

Genesis begins: “In the beginning …” Now listen to the opening of the holy Gospel according to St. John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

St. John takes us back to the beginning. Then he tells us: “All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). And then comes the great mystery: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

Who is this eternal Word? Jesus Christ. The eternal Son of God.

Now listen to St. Paul: “For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible …” (Colossians 1:16). And the verse continues: “All things were created by him and in him.”

Brothers and sisters, consider what this means. The Jesus whom we encounter in the Gospels does not begin to exist at Bethlehem. The Child whom the Blessed Virgin Mary holds in her arms is the eternal Son of God. The One who walks beside the Sea of Galilee is the One by whom the sea itself was made. The One who looks upon the heavens is the One by whom the heavens came into existence. The hands that will one day be stretched upon the wood of the Cross belong to the eternal Son by whom creation was made.

Genesis is already leading us toward Jesus Christ.

THE FATHERS

We are not the first Christians to sit before the opening words of Genesis in wonder: For nearly two thousand years, Christians have contemplated these words within the faith of the Church.

St. Basil the Great devoted his celebrated Hexaemeron – a series of homilies on the six days of creation – to contemplating the wisdom and goodness of the Creator through His works.

St. Augustine returned repeatedly to Genesis. He recognized the profound mysteries contained within its opening chapters and taught Christians to approach them with faith, reason, reverence, and humility.

St. Irenaeus defended a truth that is especially important for our journey: The God who creates is the God who saves.

The Creator revealed in Genesis is not different from the God revealed by Jesus Christ. Creation and redemption are not competing stories. They belong to one divine plan. This is one reason we listen to the Fathers. We are not inventing Christianity anew in every generation. We belong to a Church that remembers. The faith has been handed down to us.

We receive Sacred Scripture within that great communion of faith stretching backward through the centuries to the Apostles themselves.

FULFILLED IN CHRIST

Now we come to the heart of our teaching. What does Genesis 1 have to do with Jesus Christ? The answer reaches to the very heart of the Christian mystery.

The New Testament reveals that creation itself is related to the Son. St. John tells us: “All things were made by him.” St. Paul tells us: “For in him were all things created …”

Jesus Christ is not an afterthought in the plan of God. He is not merely God’s response after man sins. He is the eternal Son. And there is something more. Genesis tells us: “God created man to his own image.” St. Paul tells us concerning Christ: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15).

If we wish to understand the fullness of man’s vocation, therefore, we must look toward Jesus Christ. Christ reveals the Father to us. But in the mystery of the Incarnation, He also reveals the greatness of the vocation to which man has been called. We were created for God. We were created for communion with Him. Soon Genesis will show us how sin wounds that communion. But God did not abandon His creation.

The eternal Word by whom all things were made will enter the creation He made: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” He will assume our human nature. He will dwell among us. He will suffer. He will die upon the Cross. And He will rise from the dead.

The Son through whom creation was made enters His creation for our salvation.

There is a beautiful movement running through the whole of Sacred Scripture. The Bible begins: “In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.” And toward the conclusion of Sacred Scripture, St. John tells us: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Apocalypse 21:1).

Genesis will show us the tree of life. The Apocalypse will show us the tree of life again. Genesis begins with man created for communion with God. The Apocalypse shows us the fulfillment of that communion: “Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them” (Apocalypse 21:3).

Between that first creation and the new creation stands Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Word by whom creation was made. He is the Savior through whom fallen man is redeemed. He is the risen Lord who has conquered death. And He is the One in whom God’s saving plan reaches its fulfillment.

The Bible begins with creation. But from its very beginning, the history of salvation is moving toward Jesus Christ.

Read

FOR THIS WEEK

Read Genesis 1:1-31

Read alongside it:
John 1:1-18
Colossians 1:15-20
Hebrews 1:1-3

CARRY THESE WORDS WITH YOU

“All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3). 

REMEMBER

The God who created us is the God who came to save us. 

Reflect

Sacred Scripture is not given merely to satisfy our curiosity about things that happened long ago. The Word of God calls us to faith. It calls us to conversion. It calls us into communion with the living God. 

So this week, I invite you to bring these questions into prayer:

• Do I truly recognize my life as a gift from God?
• When I look upon creation, do I allow its goodness, beauty, and order to lead me toward the Creator?
• Do I recognize the image of God in every human person – even in those whom I find difficult to love?
• Do I receive my own dignity from God, or do I allow the opinions and judgments of the world to determine my worth?
• Do I allow God to teach me what is good, or have I allowed the surrounding culture to redefine good and evil for me?
• When I think of Jesus Christ, do I remember who He truly is – the eternal Son of God, the Word by whom all things were made?

And finally:

• If God created me for Himself, is my life truly being lived for Him?

Do not answer that final question too quickly. Carry it with you this week. Bring it before Our Lord in prayer. Allow His Word to examine your heart.

Pray

Almighty and eternal Father, You created heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible. You spoke, and creation came to be. You made us in Your image and likeness, and You saw all that You had made, and it was very good.

Give us the humility to remember that we are Your creatures and You alone are God. Teach us to receive our lives as gifts from Your hands. Give us reverence for every human person created in Your image. Open our hearts to Your Sacred Word. Send forth Your Holy Spirit to guard us from pride and error as we seek to understand the Scriptures. Keep us faithful to the faith handed down from the Apostles and preserved in Your Church.

Teach us to receive Sacred Scripture within the living Sacred Tradition of the Church and in fidelity to her teaching authority. And as we journey through Your Word, lead us always to Your beloved Son. For He is the eternal Word by whom all things were made. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the Word made flesh. He is our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer.

May everything we learn draw us more deeply into Him. And may our lives be entirely His.

Through the same Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Next Week

Genesis chapters 2 and 3

Man and Woman, Eden, and the Mystery of Marriage