"How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure?" (Job 25:4)
Bildad's third and final speech is brief: dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven. Can his forces be numbered? On whom does his light not rise? How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less a mortal, who is but a maggot - a human being, who is only a worm!
Bildad's logic is formally correct but pastorally bankrupt. The Catechism affirms human dignity as created in the image of God (CCC 356), the direct corrective to the worm theology that uses divine greatness to flatten human worth. God's transcendence does not negate human dignity; it grounds it.
Brothers and sisters, if you are only a maggot and a worm, why did God give his only Son for you? The theology that uses divine greatness to humiliate human beings has misread the Incarnation. God became human not because humans are worthless but because they are worth everything. Receive your dignity from the one who paid for it.
Lord God, we are not worms before you - we are image-bearers whom you redeemed at the cost of your Son. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.