By Colleen O’Sullivan
All men were
by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things
seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not
discern the artisan… For from the
greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy,
is seen. (Wisdom 1:1,5)
The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day pours out the word to day, and night to
night imparts knowledge. (Psalm 19:2-3)
Jesus said
to his disciples: “As it was in the days
of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the
ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all…
So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.” (Luke 1716-17,
30)
Piety
For the beauty of the earth;
For the beauty of the skies;
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies:
Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.
Study
The more things change, the more they stay the
same. Our Scripture readings for today
were written millennia ago, but in many ways, they could have been written only
yesterday. The author of the Book of
Wisdom writes about the wonders of creation – fire, wind, stars, water, etc. People in his day certainly noted the beauty
of the world around them, but they didn’t go far enough in their consideration
of how it all came to be. They deified
the elements themselves and somehow missed seeing the God who is behind all of
it.
We don’t make gods out of the elements nowadays; we
are so busy we don’t even notice the world around us half the time. Our eyes are glued on Facebook, Twitter,
video games and whatever else we find on our iPhones and other high-tech
gadgets. One of the nicest things about the 30-day retreat I went on last year
was the opportunity to put all that aside and to literally smell the flowers
and the sea instead. One morning during
that time, my retreat director and I sat on a bench in a garden and talked
about the beauties of creation. She was
into the macro-aspects of God’s handiwork, the size of the universe, the number
of solar systems, etc. I, on the other
hand, see the beauty of God’s work on a much smaller scale. I am fascinated by the intricacies of any one
cell in our bodies and how it knows what type of cell to become, how to work
with like cells and how, as a group, they, in turn, work with other kinds of
cells to make us function as human beings.
But, whether we’re into the big picture or the tiny details, how could
anyone really think all this came into being without a Creator behind it? The trick is not to take it all for granted
but to take the time to “smell the roses” and give our world some thought.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is talking to his
disciples about the day he returns to the earth. He says there will be many people who are
unprepared for his coming. He’s
right. Not much has changed in the
centuries between then and now. We still
tend to live as though we’ve got an eternity of days stretching out ahead of us
in this world. The disciples didn’t want
to hear Jesus talk about his impending suffering and death. We don’t like to think about our own
deaths. Jesus’ return seems so far off,
it’s not even on our radar screens. The
Scriptures are full of references to the transient nature of life on earth, but
we have invented a plethora of ways to ignore them. More than any parable Jesus ever told about
not knowing the time or the place, September 11th brought home to me
the necessity of trying to live each day as if it might be our last, because
the truth is, it might be. One of these days, it will be.
Action
The
message I take from these two Scriptures readings paired together is to wake
up. Wake up and appreciate the world in
which God has placed us. Too many of us
are missing the beauty of the earth, the beauty of the skies, and the amazing
power and love of the God who fashioned all of it.
Wake
up. Live today as if it were your last
day. No one has an eternity of tomorrows
in this life. If there’s someone you’re
at odds with, go and resolve the situation.
Forgive them. If there’s
something you need to do before you die, don’t put it on a bucket list. Do it.
If there’s anything you need from someone, go and ask them for it. Don’t procrastinate.
When
you have time, download or purchase a copy of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato
Sí on the environment. Once we
have taken the time to notice the created world, we will want to take care of
what God has entrusted to us. The
encyclical is beautifully written and very readable.
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