Nature lessons

This morning, prompted by the excellent resource of Aleteia’s daily prayer, I meditated on a short passage from the Book of Job (12:7-10):

But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you;  ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.  Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

The phrase that remained with me was verse 10:

In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.

Earlier in September I reflected on the work of Fr Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and his remarkable piece of work entitled The Mass on the World.  I commented on his ConsistentEucharistic Thread in a number of posts in early September.  The Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, in Francis of Assisi: A Model for Human Liberation (Orbis, 2006), draws on Thomas of Celano’s Second Life to show how St Francis recognised creation as kin.

We are often inclined to grasp, use, dominate and discard the materials of Earth, yet Scripture and Francis invite us to see creatures as God’s work, held in his hand. We share genetic kinship with other creatures, though human beings stand above them in dignity as made in God’s image (Gen 1:26-28; LaudatoSi’ #90).

The theologian Sr Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, in Ask the Beasts (Bloomsbury, 2014), whose title comes from Job 12:7, uses the term ‘deep incarnation’, a phrase coined in 2001 by the Danish Lutheran Niels Henrik Gregersen. Fr Richard Rohr has drawn on her work in one of his recent daily mediations, Creation as kin, She writes:

The flesh that the Word of God became as a particular human being is part of the tree of evolving life on earth, which in turn is part of the vast body of the cosmos….

In John 1:14 (‘the Word became flesh’), God became one of us and, at the same time, in solidarity with the whole created order.  He assumed our nature (Catechismof the Catholic Church 464-469). In John 6:51-58, that same flesh given in the Eucharist unites us to Christ and to one another (CCC #1396). Pope Francis sees the Eucharist as ‘the living centre of the universe’ (Laudato Si’ #236).

If every living thing is held in God’s hand along with the breath of every human being, as Job says, how much more should we value unborn human life? Jesus says we are ‘of more value than many sparrows’ (Mt 10:29-31).  Concern for creation cannot be reconciled with justifying abortion (see also CCC#2270-2274).  In Laudato Si’ #120, the late Pope Francis reminds us that:

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away”.

 

Human dignity comes first

In our confused world, we question what is right or even what is true.  There are so many claims on our attention, our values and our behaviour.  Without a solid point of reference we risk losing our moorings and crashing on the rocks. For me and for millions of others Christ is the rock because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). It is Christ who shows us our true worth and dignity.

In the Mass we meet the living bread who gives Himself to us in his Body and Blood. This is our source of life and this is the goal of our Christian living in a world thirsting for meaning and purpose.

In his recent encyclical, Pope Leo speaks of the Eucharist in these terms (#88):

For the Christian community, solidarity finds its source in the mystery of Christ and is nourished by the Eucharist. Solidarity emerges from communion in faith and the Sacraments: Baptism and Confirmation unite us in Christ, so that we may become one Body and one Spirit, one heart and one soul (cf. Eph 4:4; Acts 4:32). The Eucharist, which is the sacrament of unity, nurtures our belonging to the Body of Christ and teaches us how to share. The diverse sensibilities present in the Church and the strong convictions that animate each person are a source of richness if they remain anchored in the certainty that unity is a gift received and a responsibility to be fulfilled.

When we struggle to know the right path forward we must turn, first, to the Word of God proclaimed day after day in the Eucharist. There we find the source of true ‘intelligence’ and intelligence that surpasses all ideas and scripts designed to achieve short-term conquest, profit or ideology.  Rooted in Christ we can work with others to make technology work for us. However, this goes beyond any one nation state or global power alliance.  The human species’ very own survival is not to be taken for granted. It is urgent that we work for global justice and governance of what could enslave us and possibly ultimately destroy us

Preparing for Christmas

 

Adoracja z Niepokalanowa

You read that right.  Today, the feast of the Annunciation, marks the moment in time when God became one of us –  a unique human being beginning to unfold according to the laws of nature. To some, this seems like a crazy idea: that God would become something so small, so hidden, so apparently insignificant that many today would dismiss it as disposable tissue.