Giusani: Psalm 8 - The Meaning of Man

     Within this psalm lies the meaning of the definition of man's life - his relationship with the one who creates him. The whole cosmos reaches for a certain point of evolution, at which it becomes self-awareness: that point is called "I". The "I" is self-awareness of the world, of the cosmos, and of oneself. The cosmos is the context in which the relationship with God, with the Mystery, lives. 

     The Psalmist asks, "Lord, what is man that you keep him in mind, that you remember him?" Among all the beasts and little creatures of the cosmos, man is one-hundredth, one thousandth, one then thousandth. But the greatness of man, the honor and glory of man, lies in the fact that man, the individual man, is in relationship with the Infinite. To live what man is, to realize his person, man must grasp everything God has done. Happiness is the final end of this process, the process of penetrating the eternal.  

The Psalms,  Luigi Giussani, pp. 18-19