Creation Speaks of God

The other day after a storm, I saw a brilliant double rainbow in the sky above our property. You can see it in my photo above. It made me think that if that rainbow is so beautiful, how much more beautiful God must be and how good he was to give us rainbows.

Coincidentally, this week is Laudate Si’ week, the 11th anniversary of Pope Francis’s encyclical on caring for creation.

I love this quotation:  I said to the almond tree, “Sister, speak to me of God.” And the almond tree blossomed.  ~ Nikos Kazantzakis   The tree spoke of God’s beauty and tendency to be life-giving.

Creations mirror their creators. A song reflects the composer; a painting, the artist; a book, the author. In the same way, the universe, the masterpiece of the supreme Creator, reveals God. It has variety, (over 11,000 kinds of birds). It is intricate (bees know how to make honey and wax)’ It is immense. (We went to the moon but don’t know where the universe ends.) It has power like sun flares and crashing ocean waves.

All these qualities show that God is good and has great wisdom and power. Pope Francis notes in his encyclical Laudato Si’ that St. Francis of Assisi “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” (par. 12).

Every created thing is an epiphany, (a manifestation of God), echoing some aspect of God. Examples:  To behold a massive snow-topped mountain is to know God’s majesty. To watch a waterfall’s refreshing water cascade into a deep, clear pool is to see God’s purity. To stroll through woods of lovely ferns, mosses, and lofty trees is to be enveloped with the peace and serenity of God. The fragile daisy with its velvety white petals and bright yellow center tells of the Creator’s gentleness, while the rainbow arched across purple-gray clouds speaks of his beauty. A newborn baby is evidence of God’s tenderness. Fire reminds us of the energy of God’s love. A monkey shows God’s sense of humor, and a giraffe, his unpredictability.

Three Hymns of Creation

The psalmist is attuned to the speechless voices of the universe. He sings of the sun, moon, and stars this way:

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech nor are there words; their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1–4

St. Gregory Nazianzen, a fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople as well as a Doctor of the Church, echoes this concept in a hymn:

All things proclaim you—
things that can speak, and those that can not. . . . All things breathe you a prayer,
a silent hymn of your own composing.

In the same tradition, St. Francis of Assisi, who loved nature, expresses the following prayer in his joyous paean “Canticle of the Sun”:

Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures especially to my Brother Sun,

Who brings us the day and through him Thou dost brightness give.

And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great. Of Thee, Most High, he speaks.

Creation and Us

Theologian and philosopher Teilhard Chardin wrote that all creation manifests the Creator: “[T]he great mystery of Christianity is not exactly the appearance, but the transparence, of God in the universe.”  In other words we see God through things like through a glass window.

Physical things are important to us. We are part spiritual, part material. We live and work out our destiny in the realm of matter. How we use it and how we abuse it determine our eternity. We are free to exploit the material universe for our own power and pleasure, or we can share it. Either we can let it go to ruin or show concern for it. We can regard the world as just the lucky result of a coincidental combination of chemicals eons ago, or we can cherish it as the love-gift of a personal God who cares about us. The latter point of view opens for us the possibility of finding material objects a source of prayer.

You too are God’s creation.  You show his wisdom, ingenuity, and love.  How fast your skin heals after it’s cut!  Reflect on how food turns into your body—miraculous!  Look how your eyes perceive many different colors.

Jesus’s Love for Creation

The Son of God took on flesh and lived with us among color, hardness, roughness, scent, wetness, and warmth. Jesus reveled in the things of Earth, his Father’s handiwork. Jesus saw that they were good—so good that he redeemed them along with all of us at the price of his life. He redeemed all of creation.

Jesus enjoyed the aroma and taste of his mother’s freshly baked bread. He liked putting on a clean robe. In addition, he appreciated his human body that allowed him to wrestle with other boys, dance at weddings, and walk for miles. With his eyes and sense of touch he constructed things in the carpenter shop. He thrilled to the strong winds coming off the Sea of Galilee and liked the smell and feel of a gentle spring rain. He also liked strolling through fields of barley and running his hands through the grains.

By the way, you don’t need to feel bad if you never go the Holy Land.  A bishop pointed out that because Jesus lived on earth, he breathed our air, drank our water, ate our food, and trod on our ground. He sanctified it. The whole earth is holy land.

Jesus often incorporated concrete objects in his teaching. His audiovisuals were the birds of the air, lilies, the bread women baked, the Temple in Jerusalem, a Roman coin, and the roadside fig tree. Today, from the dimension where he dwells, Jesus reaches out to us in the sacraments and touches us with things: water, bread, wine, and oil. Matter has been christened by his presence.

God fills the universe completely. So there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things. Saint Bonaventure teaches us that “contemplation deepens (the more we feel the workings of God’s grace within our hearts)  and the better we learn to encounter God in creatures outside ourselves.”

For Reflection:

1. On beholding the starry night sky, the composer of Psalm 8 was awestruck. The sight lifted his mind and heart to the Creator. What especially in God’s creation prompts you to think of him and pray?

2. Where is your favorite place to pray—where you can ponder God and listen to him speak to your heart? Where on Earth did Jesus pray?

3. What feature of your body are you grateful for?

This lovely recording includes the lyrics of the song: