Seeing Christ in Creation

Green Mass (Care for Creation)
Wis 13:1-9 ; Psalm 104; Matthew 6:24-34

Seeing Christ in Creation

Nine years ago, I led a group of Bellarmine University students on a study abroad trip to Peru. One night, we took a bus ride that wound through the Andes Mountains. The driver made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere and let us all off to into a field. There was no moon that night. The inky darkness was broken only by the light of the stars. We gazed upon them and were unexpectedly disoriented. Instead of the familiar constellations that had accompanied us our whole lives in the northern hemisphere, there was an alien, antipodal sky with a strange configuration of unknown stars. Floating on the horizon just above the mountain peaks appeared the constellation known as the Crux, or the Southern Cross, composed of four of the brightest stars in the sky that form a distinct cross-shape.    

Long before being introduced to Christianity, Peruvians held the cross as sacred.  They navigated by the Crux constellation the way that Polaris is used in the northern hemisphere.  For these Pre-Colombians, the cross was a sure and reliable guide through the night, a fixed point that would not lead a wanderer astray. 

After Christianity was introduced to the Andes, the cross became a natural way for indigenous Andean people to understand Christ and his role in Creation. This was the man who brought heaven and earth together and his centrality was reflected in the night sky.  Today, the Feast of the Holy Cross on May 3rd is one of the most important in the Andes.  

It is easy to see the presence of Christ in the Southern Cross—this example perhaps a little too on the nose. Typically, God’s presence in Creation is more subtle and shrouded. Yet, King Solomon, the traditional author of the Book of Wisdom, tells us that all Creation points to God and that the wise should search Him out.  In our first reading, he insists that by studying the works of Creation, we can discern the artisan who made them. 

The LORD is the original source of beauty in the world, who fashioned the luminaries in the sky and gave power to the atomic furnaces that fuel them.  Though we should appreciate the grandeur of the cosmos, the flowers of the field, and the birds of sky for their inherent beauty, we should not stop with their surface appearance, but discern the intelligence, power, and love of the Creator who fashioned them and sustains them.   This illustrates the concept of natural revelation, how Christ shows himself not just in Scripture, but through Creation.

St. Augustine of Hippo, the great theologian and Doctor of the Church, asserted that there are two ways of knowing God, first the Book of Revelation (meaning the Bible) and second, the Book of Nature.  Both together provide a complete and complementary picture of God the Creator.  As Augustine preached about the Book of Nature, 

“Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why, heaven and earth shout to you: ‘God made me!’” (Sermon 126.6).

In our celebration of the mass, we have (at least) two moments that emphasize God the Creator.  In the Nicene Creed, every Sunday we proclaim, “I believe in one God, the Father the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that seen and unseen.”  Affirming God as our Creator is the first and the foundational doctrine of our faith. 

Secondly, in the Eucharistic prayer.  The presider prays, 

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,

for through your goodness we have received

the bread we offer you:

fruit of the earth and work of human hands,

it will become for us the bread of life.”

We see, in the simple bread and wine, the awesome work of our Creator, and his ongoing participation in Creation. But the Eucharist is also celebrated in cooperation with human beings.  Bread and wine do not grow directly out of the ground or on trees.  They require the participation and labor of human beings.  We are co-creators in the production of food and drink, and in the holy sacrament itself.  

Every mass is a Mass of Creation, connecting us to our Creator, with the earth, and with all creatures.  This vision enables us to see our own place in the vast, interconnected web of life.  Like Saint Francis, we can see the wind, the sun, and fire as our brother, the moon, the stars and the earth as our sister, and all living things as our family.  We are in a sacred relationship of mutuality, with human beings existing within Creation, not above it.  And that is why it so important for us to Care for Creation.  

As we all continue this work, let us look for those signs in nature that point us to God for our source of inspiration--whether it be our daily or weekly reminders in the Eucharist, with the lived example set by St. Francis of Assisi, or whenever we get a glimpse of the night sky.  Let us go forward together, following the sign of the cross like our Peruvians brothers and sisters, as members of this great family of Creation, and as workers of this good earth.  May we be filled with an abiding faith in Creation and love for the Creator who made us.