[from “Laudato Si”]
VI. SACRAMENTAL SIGNS
AND THE CELEBRATION OF REST
33. The universe
unfolds in God, who fills it completely.
[Francis males no
reference to Colossians 1, 15-20 and John 1, 14, but these are what he is
mining]
Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found
in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.[159] The
ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the
action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things. [It is here that the Thomistic metaphysics takes its meaning: God
is not a being, not even
the “Supreme Being, of First Cause or Prime Mover, or Perfect Being or Final
End. That is, God is not a being (or Being) in the category of being at all. He
is Being Itself , Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the Action that is being, without
Whom, nothing else is.] but
Saint Bonaventure teaches us that “contemplation deepens the more we feel the
working of God’s grace within our hearts, and the better we learn to encounter
God in creatures outside ourselves”.[160]
234. Saint John of the
Cross taught that all the goodness present in the realities and experiences of
this world “is present in God eminently and infinitely, or more properly, in
each of these sublime realities is God”.[161] This
is not because the finite things of this world are really divine, but because
the mystic experiences the intimate connection between God and all beings, and
thus feels (my underline) that “all things are God”.[162] Standing
awestruck before a mountain, he or she cannot separate this experience from
God, and perceives that the interior awe being lived has to be entrusted to the
Lord: “Mountains have heights and they are plentiful, vast, beautiful,
graceful, bright and fragrant. These mountains are what my Beloved is to me.
Lonely valleys are quiet, pleasant, cool, shady and flowing with fresh water;
in the variety of their groves and in the sweet song of the birds, they afford
abundant recreation and delight to the senses, and in their solitude and
silence, they refresh us and give rest. These valleys are what my Beloved is to
me”.[163]
Blogger: Notice that the creature
is not a “substance,” as something, some being
in itself. Rather, the creature must be purely a relation of receptivity.
Nothing more. Otherwise, what being would it (you and I) have to receive the
action of the Creator as Being Itself. That is, in the light of creation, we
have to change the way we look at the world and account for it philosophically.
Barron says: “To be a creature means to be ‘nothing,’ that is to says, pure openness
and obedience in the presence of the creator God. And, as the icon of Christ
reveals, in this ‘nothingness,’ in this ecstatic abandon, the cr3ataure most
fully discovers herself. Various denials of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo
are unmasked by Aquinas as sinful attempts to avoid obedience. To deny the
creator God is to live the illusion that one can find oneself apart from total
surrender; it is to fly in the face of the Gospel injunction that those who
cling to their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Christ’s
sake will find it. Hardly abstract, the teaching on creation seeks to place us,
once more, in the stand and attitude of the incarnate Son.”[1]
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