Autumn Reflections

Autumn Reflections On Christology With Ellen Leonard Csj

Ellen began our conversation by recalling a story by the noted U.S. naturalist John Muir. When Muir came upon a dead bear in Yosemite, he penned a fierce criticism of religious people who make no room in heaven for noble creatures such as this magnificent bear:

Not content with taking all of earth, they also claim the celestial country as the only ones who possess the kinds of souls for which that imponderable empire was planned. To the contrary, he believed, God’s charity is broad enough for bears.[1]

For Ellen the contemporary and emerging Christology is all about enlarging one’s perspective. Christology in the Western church has been almost exclusively anthropocentric or human-centered. Elizabeth Johnson, Ellen notes, points out the need for a wider scope in theology, one which puts Christology back in tune with the basic themes of biblical, patristic, and medieval theologies.[2] In our day, with the widening circles of universe and evolution being mapped out, the human race itself is being repositioned as an intrinsic part of the unfolding story of life’s network -on our planet, in our solar system . In this place we know ourselves within the ever-expanding and entire cosmic story and history.

Repositioning our anthropology within the ongoing wonder of this cosmic scale has far reaching implications as we seek to understand our place in such a millennial history. It fundamentally rearranges the landscape of the imagination of our hearts and minds. As we begin to plumb the depths of such relationship, we begin to realize how the human is  embedded in the natural world. We evolved as part of the universe from its very deepest, wakening inception.

Such repositioning of our anthropology calls us to a new landscape on which to understand the significance of the incarnation.  It is to begin to realize that it is seeing the incarnation as not being relevant just for humankind but for all creation. In Johnson’s article in America, she writes, “for God so loved the cosmos” that all creation was birthed.  It can be called a “deep incarnation,” that radical and divine inclusivity that has touched deep down, calling all beings into a continuous, unfolding relationship with divinity.

Humans are not alone in their suffering and seeking of salvation for “all creation has been groaning in travail together until now” (Romans 8:22). In this widening view of divinity, the circle of redemption reaches out to include all the natural world, giving cause for an ecological ethic. Now divinity can be seen in the light of a cosmocentric and biocentric horizon, not just anthropocentric. We can know this as a vision of “deep resurrection,” extending and expanding in the boundless love of a cosmic God.

In the light of this perspective and returning to Muir’s reflection on the noble bear, we can envision an inclusive heaven, beginning here on earth. As the early church Father St. Ambrose wrote “In Christ’s resurrection the earth itself rose.”

[1]Johnson, Elizabeth, “An Earthy Christology.” America April 13 (2009). http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11566&o=34698[accessed April 15, 2009].

[2] Ibid.

“The Emerging Secret”

Care For God’s Creation And The Social Teaching Of The Church

Long known as the Church’s “best kept secret”, Catholic Social Teaching (CST), with its concern for the poor, families and communities remains largely unknown by many in the Church. Even less known is the recent emergence of concern for God’s creation within that body of Church teaching. 

CST is strong in its call to Christians. As Pope John Paul II stated in his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, “The ecological crisis is a moral issue, the responsibility of everyone – care for the environment is not an option” (#3 and #10).

Scripture is the starting point for the Church’s teaching on the environment. It is based on the recognition that all creation belongs to God: “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24: v.1). The creation story in Genesis reminds humans that they have a responsibility to care for the rest of creation of which they are but a part. We read in Scripture that God saw creation as “good” (Genesis 1-28). Pope John Paul II accents this goodness and beauty of creation which he says “is called to glorify God” (#14).

CST also recognizes the sacramental nature of the universe by reminding Christians that in nature God is revealed to us. In their pastoral statement on the environment, “Renewing the Earth” the U.S. Bishops emphasize this point: “For the very plants and animals, mountains and oceans, which in their loveliness and sublimity lift our minds to God, by their fragility and perishing likewise cry out, “We have not made ourselves” (#6).

This grounds our call to respect creation. As John Paul states: “Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation”(#16). The Bishops of the Philippines in their 1988 document on the environment state that the environment is “the ultimate pro-life issue” thus linking the Church’s teaching on ecology to its teaching on a “consistent ethic of life”. Joining our care for the earth with our concern for the poor, the Canadian bishops remind us in their pastoral letter “You Love all that Exists” that: “We are called as co-creators to join God’s work to repair some of creation’s wounds which have been inflicted due to our ecological sins. We are also called to creative actions of solidarity with those who have less access to the benefits of God’s bountiful creation.” To achieve this they commend a three-fold response; a contemplative response through which we are called to “deepen our capacity to appreciate the wonders of nature as a act of faith and love”; an ascetic response which calls us to adjust our lifestyle choices limiting our consumption for the sake of the earth and its most vulnerable peoples; and a prophetic response which publicly challenges unjust structures. As Pope Benedict states: “The Church has a responsibility toward creation and she must assert this in the public sphere” (Caritas in Veritate #51).