Ecology is a topic that is very much a part of the world culture we live in. We see not only the harm that we have done to nature but to ourselves. Apathy and evasion are no longer acceptable responses. A priest with a degree in the Theology of Ecology reflects on the topic in the recent Korean Catholic magazine.
Most of us are familiar with Wis.13: 5, Job 12: 7-8, Rom.1: 20, and Eph. 4: 6 but less so with the thinking of the Fathers and Saints of the early Church on Nature.
St. Antony, the dessert Father (250-356), could not read but with his study of God's creation, he could come to knowledge of God and a healthy spirituality. The philosophers visiting him asked how he spent his many lonely hours, since he couldn’t read. "My book is the creation itself," he responded. "Whenever I want to read that book it is always at hand."
"It is the divine page that you must listen to; it is the book of the universe that you must observe. The pages of Scripture can only be read by those who know how to read and write, while everyone, even the illiterate, can read the book of the universe," wrote St. Augustine.
Pope John Paul in the Encyclical Fides and Ratio #19 tells us, "A first stage of divine Revelation is the marvelous “book of nature”, which, when read with the proper tools of human reason, can lead to knowledge of the Creator."
The author of the article, using the traditional three steps of spirituality, suggests: First, the way of purification: Moving from seeing creation as instrumentality, to opening our hearts, to seeing the divine within nature.
Second, the way of illumination: Meditating on nature to discover God’s attributes: wisdom, goodness, beauty, and omnipotence. "Look at the birds in the heavens...." (Matt. 6:16-28).
Third, the way of unity: Contemplation in unity with the Triune God. To see nature with the eyes of God and to see the world with the eyes of nature.
