Father Richard Rohr describes how understanding God as Creator impacts how we treat creation:
If Christianity would have paid attention to the teachings and example of Jesus and St. Francis, our planet—“Sister Mother Earth,” as Francis called her—would perhaps be much healthier today. But it took until the 21st century for a pope to write an entire encyclical, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, making this quite clear and demanding. Pope Francis writes:
Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wisdom 13:5); indeed, “his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world” (Romans 1:20)…. The world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise. [1]
We have not honored God’s Presence in the elemental, physical world. We made God as small as our own constricted hearts. We picked and chose, saying, “Oh, God is really only in my group, in baptized people, in moral people” and so on. Is there that little of an Infinite God to go around? Do we have to be stingy with God? Why pretend only we deserve God, and that God is not for other groups, religions, animals, plants, the elements, Brother Sun, and Sister Moon?
God is saving creation and bringing all creatures back where they began—into union with their Creator. God loves everything that God has made! God proclaimed all created things “good” (see Genesis 1:9–31 and Wisdom 11:24–12:1). But we, with our small minds, can’t deal with that. We have to whittle God and love into small parts that our minds can handle and portion out. Human love is conditional and operates out of a scarcity model. There’s not enough to go around, just like Jesus’ disciple Andrew said about the boy’s five loaves and two small fish (John 6:9). Humans can’t conceptualize or even think infinite or eternal concepts. We cannot imagine Infinite Love, Infinite Goodness, or Infinite Mercy.
We don’t come to the God Mystery through concepts or theories; we come by connecting with what is—with God’s immediate, embodied presence which is all around us. Notice that almost all of Jesus’ common stories and examples are nature based and relationship based—never once theology or academic theory.
We have not recognized the one Body of Christ in creation. Perhaps we just didn’t have the readiness or training. First of all, there is the seeing, and then there is the recognizing; the second stage is called contemplation. We cannot afford to be unaware any longer. We must learn to see, listen, or touch and to recognize how broad and deep the Presence is if we are to truly care for our common home.
References:
[1] Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, paragraph 12. Read here for the full text of this encyclical.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018), 26–27.
Image credit and inspiration: Jennie Razumnaya, Blooming Peach Garden (detail), 2022, photo, Los Angeles, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We’re invited into the beauty of creation, receiving and offering, just like this artist painting the petals of a cherry blossom.
Story from Our Community:
As a recovering alcoholic I find the Daily Meditations to be spot on for my journey of recovery. Seeing life through the lens of a loving and caring Creator is transformative and gives me hope to begin again each day walking in grace. Thank you for the daily reminder to walk in love.
—Gail M.
