THE ECO-THEOLOGICAL CONVERSION: “GOD IN THE CREATURES AND THEY WERE ALL BEAUTIFUL”

They will say that we are delusional, that we are deceived, that ecology is the last truth. However, we believe that behind this immense life, of which we are a part, and sustaining it, is the Mystery of God, of our God Trinity. Ecological passion does not separate us from our God but offers us the opportunity to have the most impressive experience of God that we could imagine. However, the new ecological consciousness invites us to change our doctrine about God. The last part of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Sì” invites us to this. If the “ecological conversion” invites us to such a change of mentality that we have to unlearn and then learn, the same happens to us with our image of God. The “ecological conversion” invites us to reconstruct our doctrine on God and rebuild it from another perspective.

The “other” image of God-Trinity, reflected in his Creation

The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships… throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships… The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships”

The world was created by the three Persons acting as a single divine principle, but each one of them performed this common work in accordance with his own personal property. Consequently, “when we contemplate with wonder the universe in all its grandeur and beauty, we must praise the whole Trinity”

Laudato Sì, 238

 “God claims Earth and everything in it”

Psalm 24:1

God – Abba

  • It is the ultimate source of everything that exists: everything has the imprint of His paternity-maternity; everything has been born of Him. His greatness, his beauty, his power are unimaginable. If we are enraptured before his Creation, what will the Creator be like? From Him came this creation, all of it twinned. Everything has the mark of its Author. Everything brings us news of its Author.
  • It is the loving and communicative foundation of all that exists. If our Abba has created the universe, it is for his desire to communicate, for his love. This cosmos is like the body of God the Creator. The Abba is embodied in his creation. According to the tithe, God is separate from His Creation. According to pantheism, God and Creation are the same. According to pan-in-theism, God remains the Transcendent, but also the Omni-present in all his creation. Its omnipresence in life and death, because He is Love.

Jesus – The Son

  • The Son, who reflects Him, and through whom everything has been created, joined this earth when He was formed in the womb of Mary. Jesus is the human emergence of God. He appears among us as “one of many”. But He is the model in which the Abba Creator was inspired to create this cosmos in which we are and live. Everything has a Christic mark.
  • And if there is life and death in ecological reality, it is because the Son also lived and died like us, like all living creation. But He is also the firstborn from the dead … and indicates that everything is in a resurrection trance.
  • God loved the world (the cosmos) so much that he gave us his Son. Jesus on the cross, spilling his blood on the earth and on humanity is the manifestation of how much God loves his Creation. Jesus Crucified is the manifestation of the divine Trinity in an act of love, in kenotic love, which empties into the world. God so loved the world!

The Holy Spirit

  • St. Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost that Joel’s prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit on “all flesh” had been fulfilled. There is no disconnect between the Spirit and all visible reality. The Holy Spirit is dynamically present in all cosmic reality.
  • “The Spirit is the infinite bond of love, it is intimately present in the heart of the universe, animating and giving rise to new paths” (LS, 238).
  • The Holy Spirit is not only the one who takes care of Creation as the foundation and inspiration of all our care, but is the Great Connector: it is characteristic of the Spirit of Love to contact some realities with others; wherever there is connection, the beauty of the world emerges. Only evil spirits cause diabolical disconnects, leading to death! The connections of the good Spirit make that “nothing is lost”.
  • It is the Spirit who leads it to its mysterious fullness: the new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem, the new city. Sometimes we see the future of our planet very dark. The Spirit tells us that the “future” is “a new earth.”

The human connection: heaven and earth in harmony

Mary, queen of all creation and Joseph, her husband

  • Mary has been the woman chosen by God to remain forever associated with the Holy Spirit. She conceived Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has the “best” and “permanent” accomplice in her. Mary never supplants the Spirit: she is his ambassador, his human-female face. Where Mary is, there is the Holy Spirit.
  • As happens with the Spirit, Mary is the caretaker of Jesus, and she is the caretaker of humanity gathered in different peoples, and she is the caretaker—with Mother’s affection and love—of our wounded world (LS, 241).
  • Mary is with Jesus the beginning of Creation in its utopian realization. In her the new earth, the new heaven, the new Jerusalem has begun. She lives with Jesus completely transfigured, and all creatures sing her beauty. Mary is the mother and queen of all creation, in her part of creation reached all the fullness of its beauty (LS, 241).
  • “Clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (Rev 12:1). This is the apocalyptic image that tells us about it, but not in isolation, but connected with all of Creation and with the new people of God.
  • Marian devotion is, therefore, an extraordinary help to look at this world with wiser eyes, and to recognize that God wants to save his creation and that he loves it… “because God loved the world so much, that through Mary he gave us to his Son”.
  • What God has joined, let no one separate. Joseph is closely linked to Mary, with the beautiful and significant title of “husband”. God united them: Joseph was a just, hard-working, strong man (LS, 242).
  • The Gospel of Matthew introduces us to Joseph as a strong, determined man, and at the same time, full of great tenderness: a true guardian of the Mother and Child, a true Moses in exodus to save Jesus from Herod’s violence. With his work and his presence, Joseph gave stability to the growth of Jesus in grace and wisdom. He was the witness and guardian of the great Gift of the Abba and the Spirit to humanity (LS, 242).

Beyond the sun

What awaits us? Before asking this question, it is important to focus our attention on the present of the earth: what do you want from me, Lord? Take care of it and enrich it! Each of us has received a gift to respond to this task. The mission of every human being is clear: to leave this planet—on death—better than we receive it; to make our lives (with their work, sleeplessness, with our creativity and goodness) leave a trail of good and improvement on earth and in humanity.

And now yes, what awaits us? When we are face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12) we will be able to read with happy admiration the mystery of the universe, which will participate with us in the endless fullness (LS, 243). There will be no heaven without a universe!

We are traveling towards the Sabbath of eternity, towards the new Jerusalem, towards the common house of heaven. Eternal life will be a shared wonder, where each creature, luminously transformed, will take their place and contribute their own (LS, 243).

Meanwhile, we unite to take charge of this house entrusted to us, knowing that all the good that is in it will be assumed in the heavenly feast.

Prayer

Abbá, Jesús, Saint Ruah, who call us to the generous dedication and to give everything,
that you offer us the strength and light we need to get ahead.
Holy Trinity of Life, that you love us so much … and continue to be present in the heart of this world:
Abbá, that we never doubt that You do not abandon us, that your risen Jesus has not left us, orphans, that your Holy Ruah is always “within us”, that you are definitely united to our land.
Enlighten us, energize us to find new ways. Laudato Sì! (LS, 245)

To contemplate:
ANTHEM TO MOTHER EARTH

(Translation from Spanish to English: Fr. Alberto Rossa, cmf)

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