Dear Brothers and Sisters:
1. "How desirable are all His works, and how sparkling they are to see!
... He has made nothing incomplete... Who could ever tire of seeing His
glory? ... We could say more but could never say enough; let the final
word be: 'He is the all.' Where can we find the strength to praise Him?
For He is greater than all His works" (Sirach 42: 22, 24-25; 43:27-28).
With these words full of awe, the biblical sage Sirach places himself
before the splendor of creation, weaving the praises of God. It is a
little piece of the thread of contemplation and meditation that runs
throughout Sacred Scripture, beginning with the first lines of Genesis,
when in the silence of nothingness creation blossoms, summoned by the
effective Word of the Creator.
"Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Gen 1:3). In
this part of the first creation story we already see the action of the
Word of God, of which John will say: "In the beginning was the Word ...
and the Word was God... All things came into being through Him, and
without Him not one thing came into being" (John 1:1-3). Paul will confirm
in the hymn of his Letter to the Colossians that "for in Him (Christ)
all things in Heaven and on earth were created, things visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominations or rulers or powers -- all
things have been created through Him and for Him. He Himself is before
all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Col 1:16-17). But in
the first moment of creation we also find concealed the Spirit: "the
Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2). The glory of
the Trinity, we can say with the Christian tradition, shines throughout
creation.
2. In fact, it is possible, in light of Revelation, to view the creative
act as first of all appropriated to the "Father of lights, with Whom
there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17). He shines
across the entire horizon, as the Psalmist sings: "O Lord, our
Sovereign, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your
glory above the Heavens" (Ps 8:1). By God, "the world is firmly
established; it shall never be moved" (Ps 96:10). The Creator sets
Himself over the void, figured symbolically by the chaotic waters that
raise their voice; He gives them consistency and security: "The floods
have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the
floods lift up their roaring. More majestic than the thunders of mighty
waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the
Lord!" (Ps 93:3-4).
3. In Sacred Scripture creation is also often tied to the divine Word
that breaks forth into action: "By the word of the Lord the Heavens were
made, and all their host by the breath of His mouth... He spoke, and it
came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm... He sends out His command
to the earth; His word runs swiftly" (Ps 33:6-9; 147:15). In Old
Testament wisdom literature it is divine Wisdom personified in Whom the
cosmos originates, and Who carries out the project of God's mind (cf
Prov 8:22-31). It was said that John and Paul in the Word and in God's
Wisdom would see the announcement of the work of Christ "through Whom
are all things and through Whom we exist" (1 Cor 8:6), because it is
"through whom He (God) also created the worlds" (Heb 1:2).
4. Lastly, in other places Scripture highlights the role of the Spirit
of God in the creative act: "When You send forth Your spirit, they are
created; and You renew the face of the earth" (Ps 104:30). This same
Spirit is symbolically figured in the breath of God's mouth. It gives
life and consciousness to man (cf Gen 2:7) and brings him back to life
in the resurrection, as the prophet Ezekiel announced in a suggestive
text, where the Spirit is at work bringing back to life the bones now
dry (cf 37:1-14). The same breath controls the sea's waters in Israel's
exodus from Egypt (cf Ex 15:8-10). The Spirit still regenerates the
human creature, as Jesus will say in His nocturnal dialogue with
Nicodemus: "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God
without being born of the water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is
flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit" (Jn 3:5-6).
5. Faced with the glory of the Trinity in creation, we must contemplate,
sing, and rediscover awe. Contemporary society has become dry, "not for
lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder" (G.K. Chesterton).
Contemplation of the universe also means, for the believer, listening to
a message, hearing a paradoxical and silent voice, as the "Psalm of the
Sun" suggests: "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" (Ps 19:2-4).
Nature therefore becomes a Gospel that speaks to us of God: "For from
the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding
perception of their Creator" (Wis 13:5). Paul teaches us that "Ever
since the creation of the world His (God's) eternal power and divine
nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through
the things He has made" (Rom 1:20). But this capacity for contemplation
and knowledge, this discovery of a transcendent presence in creation,
must also lead us also to rediscover our fraternity with the earth, to
which we have been linked since creation (cf Gen 2:7). This very goal
was foreshadowed by the Old Testament in the Hebrew Jubilee, when the
earth rested and man gathered what the land spontaneously offered (cf Lv
25:11-12). If nature is not violated and humiliated, it returns to being
the sister of humanity.
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