Word to the Wise
Friday, November 16, 2007 - Thirty-second Friday in Ordinary Time
[Wisdom 13:1-9 and Luke 17:20-37]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; but either fire, or wnd, or the swift air, or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminiaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods....
St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas teach that the human person can attain to a knowledge of God by the use of natural reason. One of the ways in which this can be done is simply to observe nature! Secular science sees it in terms of chemical processes, but it cannot explain the human reaction to the sheer beauty and wonder of nature (and its "cruelty" as well). The Book of Wisdom and St. Paul (Romans 1:26) scold the human minds that are closed to the vision of God in creation. It's as if such minds take the experience of "wonder" for granted and do not ask how such an experience is possible since there is no process to measure it( of course, they just say, "at least not yet!") For the past several years, I have spent some wonderful days on the Oregon coast as a guest of my dear friends, Ed and Maureen Fender. Their home is about a minute's walk from the rocky Pacific coast and I spend hours walking along that coast, listening to and watching the surf. The immensity and continuity of it puts me in awe and I find it a powerful setting in which to pray. I have also had the opportunity to take a privileged tour of the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Again, the immensity of it leaves me in a position of the beauty not just of nature but of its creator. St. Paul and the Book of Wisdom remind us that the heavens and beautiful earth are not gods but GOD'S. They also remind us that these are not just the results of "big bangs" and chance chemical processes. Creation summons us to faith. Often our failure is that we do not see ourselves as part of the beauty of creation and we reduce it all to board feet of lumber and barrels of oil. We would do well to re-read Wisdom and St. Paul! AMEN
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