A curious phenomenon occurs at a wedding. Someone enters a crowded room with a retinue, wearing fancy attire, accompanied by music, and the onlookers do not find this vain or pompous. When a person decks herself out in fancy attire to be seen by others—i.e., “overdresses” for an occasion—we may suspect bad motives, but not so with the bride at her wedding, for we rightly sense that something else is going on. I wish to argue in this article—the second in a series of three on self-esteem seen from a Catholic perspective—that this phenomenon helps us to understand the right relation between self-esteem and doing good works. Just as a bride wears a beautiful dress to celebrate that she is loved rather than to try to earn the groom’s love, so we are to do good works to celebrate that we are loved by God rather than to earn his love. This is what happens when we have self-esteem based on knowing that we are wonderfully made and loved by God.

The preceding article noted that the doctrinal basis for this self-esteem, which is so needed today, is that every human being is made in the image of God. Bearing the divine image means that each of us has the amazing potential to share in God’s own life, and this potential shows the tremendous value each of us possesses. The imago Dei and capax Dei in us therefore provide the primary reason for us to think well of ourselves, and thus to have self-esteem. Understood in this way, self-esteem does not depend on what we do, but on what God has done, for he has made us with this dignity. We need not earn it through our accomplishments nor despair of it when we fail to do good. This is good news, but it raises a concern: If this version of self-esteem does not require good actions, will having it make us indifferent to doing good? The answer is “no” for various reasons.

For the Love of God

For one, it does not work to base self-esteem on our actions. Recall from the previous article that we need a reason to think well of ourselves. Here the reason is that we have accomplished good things. That is, we locate our worth in how good we are at doing this or that, even in how successful we are at living a moral life. Human pride contributes to this, since it wants us to see our dignity as something we have accomplished or for which we are responsible. But eventually this self-esteem based on our works collapses, for we realize that we are not as good as we thought at some endeavor, especially in the moral life. We are left in despair, unable to believe that we have worth, and that in turn means we are unable to believe that we are loved. After all, what is there to love within us, if we lack value? And to the extent that we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19), our inability to believe that God loves us keeps us from loving and doing good works out of love.

Instead of this works-based self-esteem, we want a self-esteem based on how God has made us. Here the credit goes to God even while we see the dignity in ourselves, for it is God who created us in his image and thereby gave us such great worth. We may still lament our lack of moral worth due to our sins, but there is no justification for completely loathing ourselves, since no matter how badly we have sinned, our natural worth remains. To use the language of the Vatican’s 2024 document, Dignitas Infinita, even when we lack moral dignity, we have ontological dignity.¹ Indeed, after we sin, God still sees the dignity he put within us, is pleased with it, and wants to restore it to communion with himself. We should not disagree with God by hating ourselves; rather, working with him, we should see our inherent dignity, esteem it, and allow him to restore us to communion with him. This self-esteem based on what God has done is always available to us, no matter how badly we have acted. In a certain sense, it is unconditional, but not in a way that makes us indifferent to doing good works.

Dignified Self-Esteem

Catholic teaching on human dignity has often been linked to social justice. Since the inherent dignity of the human person is not derived from one’s actions, every human being has dignity, regardless of what the person can do (e.g., the unborn, the infirm) or has done (e.g., the criminal). In turn, everyone should be treated with dignity. Yet the teaching on human dignity can also be linked to self-esteem. In fact, by doing so we will further the work of social justice as well. After all, will people respect the inherent dignity of other people if they do not see and respect that dignity in themselves? The love of neighbor and the love of self work in tandem, as indicated by their juxtaposition in the second Greatest Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This explains why people who do not love themselves often struggle to love others. Accordingly, if we help people love themselves for being made in the image of God, that will help them love others as made in the same divine image. What is more, when people see themselves as having dignity, it encourages them to act with dignity. For example, when women in unplanned pregnancies come to pregnancy resource centers, they are treated with respect and compassion. Being thus affirmed in their dignity, they often come to see that they can do the noble act of bringing their children to term. Another example is found in the phrase, “I am worth waiting for,” which is used to promote chastity. Knowing one’s worth fosters actions worthy of one’s dignity.

We also see that this version of self-esteem leads to good actions when we recall how it is based on one’s potential to share in God’s life. As noted in the previous article, we value certain cuts of meat for their potential to be made into delicious steaks, and a slab of marble for its potential to be made into beautiful objects. Having potential bestows value and, thus, each of us has the greatest value for having the greatest possible potential, which is to share in God’s life. We may go further and observe that one who values a piece of marble for its potential will seek to realize that potential by having the marble sculpted and, likewise, one who values a cut of meat for its potential does not let it rot away but has it cooked.

Just so, if one values oneself for one’s potential to share in the divine life, one will not neglect this potential but will do what is necessary to realize it. Yet, doing good deeds is what is necessary to realize this potential. As St. Benedict says, “If we want to dwell in the tent of [God’s] kingdom, then unless we run to it by good actions, we will simply not reach it.”² The context of his words indicates that these good actions are to be understood broadly. They are not only external actions, such as giving to the poor, but also internal ones, such as thanking God in one’s heart. They include not only positive actions, such as speaking the truth, but also negative ones, such as not lying. The self-esteem advocated here leads us to do all these kinds of good works. Of course, the grace of God is needed to do them, but still, we must cooperate with that grace and do them, in order to realize our potential to share in God’s life. If we value ourselves for our potential to share in God’s life, we will be motivated to do these good actions.

Dressed to Express

To help us sustain and live in this version of self-esteem, we can draw on our earlier example of a bride. How a bride presents herself at her wedding illustrates how this self-esteem leads us to doing good works joyfully as a celebration of being loved by God. Especially noteworthy here is the way a bride presents herself through her dress. The Order for Celebrating Matrimony does not require that the bride present herself in a way distinct from the groom, nor that she wear a beautiful wedding dress. But where the rites are silent, the Bible speaks. Ephesians 5:25-27 and especially Revelation 19:7-8—which are among the biblical texts listed for the celebration of marriage—speak of the bride’s bright wedding garment. By donning this festive garment, the bride presents herself not only as willing to marry but as joyful to do so. The onlookers do not see the pomp of her wedding dress as pompous. No, they rightly see it as her joyful expression of being loved by the one she loves. In other contexts, a person making a grand entrance in a fancy dress might make onlookers suspect that she is trying to win admiration and love. But here the bride’s dress is correctly seen as celebrating the fact that she is already loved and, in turn, she is inviting others to share in her joy.

The Bible invites us to apply this image to the practice of good works. Clothing was sometimes used in the Bible to signify conduct, with clean or appropriate attire representing good deeds and soiled or inappropriate attire representing evil deeds.³ Revelation explicitly ties this to the wedding garment. Speaking of the Church as the bride who makes herself ready for the wedding of the Lamb, Revelation 19:8 says that “it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure,” and it immediately explains, “for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Putting on the wedding garment symbolizes doing good deeds. All of us, female or male, married or unmarried, may learn from this. God has made us with tremendous dignity and he likes what he sees. He loves us. Realizing this truth, each of us can realize that we are of tremendous worth, are pleasing to God, and are loved by God. Like the bride at her wedding, we need to accept that we are loved and to celebrate it. And the way we celebrate this is by clothing ourselves in good works. Thus, having self-esteem based on knowing our worth before God leads us to live a good and holy life.

I would like to note two things in closing. First, the above emphasizes the dignity that belongs to the human person by nature, but this is not to deny the necessity of grace. The grace of Christ is needed to elevate this natural dignity, so that our potential for sharing in the divine life is partly realized now and is led toward its full realization in heaven. We cooperate with this movement toward heaven by doing good works, which are themselves graced participations in Christ’s love. Second, notice that the bride’s celebration of being loved leads to loving communion with her groom in the marriage covenant. This addresses a concern raised in the previous article, namely, that we may falsely think that self-esteem will make us focus on ourselves rather than go beyond ourselves to enter into communion with God and others. In the next article we will use the priestly act of offering sacrifice to answer this concern more fully.

_{^{Image Source: AB/Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Douce Apocalypse—Bodleian MS 180.}}

1. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Infinita, 7.
2. Rule of St. Benedict prologue, 22. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 6, proem. which likewise notes that by good voluntary acts one attains true happiness in God.
3. E.g., Psalm 132:9, Proverbs 31:25, Isaiah 64:6, Zechariah 3:4, Colossians 3:9-13, and Revelation 3:4-5; cf. Matthew 22:11-14 and Isaiah 1:16-18.