“I want to propose to Christians some lines of ecological spirituality that are born of the convictions of our faith. Because what the Gospel teaches us has consequences for our way of thinking, feeling and living (…) Spirituality is not disconnected from one’s own body or from nature or the realities of this world, but is lived with them and in them, in communion with all that surrounds us.” (LS 216).
If ecological sin manifests itself in the rupture of the three relationships: God – Person – Creation, this will require a conversion, which can only be the result of a spiritual journey. We, as believers, believe that the beginning of a commitment and action in favor of the environment starts from the realm of the deepest values and convictions, that is, from our spirituality. The circumstances of today’s world reality require us to find common languages between our spiritual legacy as Redemptorists and the ecological issue, so that the potential of our charism and our mission may result in abundant life also for our Common Home.
The fact that our Redemptorist saints, blessed and martyrs were able to find God in people and in everyday events was largely due to their daily encounter with God in prayer and contemplation. They teach us that contemplation affects the way we see and relate to reality and to the created world. Indeed, St. Alphonsus very much understood that prayer leads us to cultivate the same relationships as Jesus.
In response to the last General Chapter’s invitation to reimagine ourselves in the world, we need to move from a spirituality disconnected from the natural world to a spirituality that brings us into an intimate relationship with God who reveals himself in the book of nature. Growing ecological awareness offers a world of possibilities for reading our Redemptorist spirituality in ecological perspective. It is a matter of considering the theology of Redemption and Creation as two sides of the same coin, with the consequences that this has for our spiritual life, for our ministry and ultimately for the building of a better world.
The Incarnation in Ecological Perspective
Our Christian faith professes that Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made, became incarnate for our salvation in Mary’s womb. This truth that lies at the heart of our spirituality has defined our being and doing as Redemptorists and has the potential to decipher for us the ecological dimension of our charism. The God of life and abundant redemption is not the god of the deists, that is, the god who creates the world, but abandons it. No, the one and Triune God professed by the Christian faith is the God who creates but is also the God who sustains creation with the action of the life-giving Spirit, and is the God who redeems in Jesus Christ the Redeemer. In such a way that our faith in the Redeemer will allow us to better perceive the natural world, not as an independent reality, but as a project of communion and abundant Life whose source is in the Trinity and of which we are a part. Creation, Incarnation and Redemption constitute the foundations of our Redemptorist spirituality, but we must recognize that we still have a long way to go to articulate them harmoniously so that they are better expressed in our apostolic ministry.
In this sense, the words of Pope Benedict XVI are enlightening: “The Redeemer is the Creator and if we do not proclaim God in his full grandeur – as Creator and as Redeemer – we also diminish the value of the Redemption.” (August 6, 2008). Recognizing and deepening this close link implies for Redemptorists the acknowledgement of our responsibility towards creation, a responsibility that passes and is expressed through our ministry and preaching.
Our Redemptorist spirituality, by situating itself in the theology of the Incarnation-Redemption, helps us to reconnect with the care of Creation. With the affirmation “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) the Gospel of St. John expresses that God assumes not only human flesh, but flesh in the Hebrew sense, that is, matter (adama – afar), the substance of which all creation is composed. We are speaking of the Word made earth/dust. In Jesus God participates in the web of life of the created world, so that the biological and chemical processes of the natural world also apply to the person of Jesus. Jesus, as a biological unit, joins the web of life on earth that has been unfolding over time and continues to project into the future. By “pitching his tent among us” as some translations of the Bible put it, Jesus breathes the same air that all living things on earth breathe; he is nourished by the fruits of the earth that also nourish all creatures; he receives the rays of the sun that make possible the processes of photosynthesis, and he drinks from the water that falls from the clouds and evaporates after having made the earth produce.
Theologians such as St. Irenaeus have recognized that, with the incarnation, God is incarnated not only in the humanity of a Jew from Galilee. Just as Adam represents the pinnacle of creation, Jesus Christ, the new Adam, represents all of creation redeemed. Some contemporary theologians refer to this perspective in terms of “deep incarnation.”
The Gospels offer us a glimpse of the earthly life of Jesus: in a close relationship with the natural world, from his birth in a stable, walking on mountains, beaches, and fields, praying in isolated places in nature. His parables and stories reveal to us not only the numerous settings in which his ministry takes place, but also an intimate and special relationship with the natural world: flocks, birds, lilies, seeds, water, fire, and the weather are some of the images that reveal this relationship. In this way, the Gospels and the entire New Testament present us with the Good News of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, as Good News destined for all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth have been reconciled (Eph. 1:20).
The Sacrifice that renews Creation
Concepts as close to us as self-abasement, sacrifice, detachment and distacco find parallels in the natural world and in ecology. The life and work of Christ the Redeemer reveals to us that the power that moves the human heart and nature is the power of love and sacrifice. Redemptorist spirituality can find, in the following of the Redeemer, “who loved us and gave himself for us as a pleasing offering” (Eph. 5:2), the inspiration for the defense and promotion of life and care of Creation.
In nature, there is this law of reciprocity that causes an individual to struggle and give him up for the good of the group, family or tribe. It is a sense of oneness with the Whole that suggests that for living species that find themselves in circumstances of risk, securing a future constitutes one of the most decisive factors for cooperation and self-sacrifice. From this evolutionary point of view, one could explain the degree of sacrifice, for example, that a mother or father is willing to endure for the sake of their offspring; in this same sense one can also explain the degree of sacrifice that as individuals or as a generation, we are willing to assume for the sake of others and future generations.
In fact, the term sacrifice, which from its origins has had a religious use (from the Latin sacrififium), has its roots in the words sacer (something that is separated from what is profane), and facere (to do). Within the religious sphere, sacrifice has constituted the effort of the human being to enter into communion with the transcendental reality that embraces everything. This view of sacrifice has constituted the fundamental act of worship. Thus, what is offered in sacrifice, in one way or another, is life itself as recognition of its divine character whose source is outside the creature.
Now, in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, the flow of abundant life that began at Creation and was affected by original sin, is reestablished once again to benefit all of Creation. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6), and his resurrection renews Creation. Through his sacrifice, we participate in full life and are new creatures (cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Eph 4:17-32). Only the sacrifice of Jesus can put us in contact with the Source of life, because his sacrifice, unlike the others, is not simply a method, but THE way by which we gain access to that Life. When Redemptorists speak of abundant redemption, we are affirming that the effects of the redemptive sacrifice overflow beyond human reality to touch every creature within the fabric of the created whole.
Thus, the structures of sin that feed arrogance, indifference and greed for profit in human beings can only be overcome by “dedication to the good of others, together with the willingness to “lose oneself”, in the evangelical sense, for the sake of others” as the Redeemer did (John Paul II, Enc. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 38: AAS 80 (1988) 566). This is the mirror in front of which we Redemptorists place ourselves at the moment of understanding the redemptive sacrifice of Christ and understanding our role as collaborators in His redemptive work. St. Alphonsus’ intuition of the Redeemer’s sacrifice as a spiritual path is still relevant today, because it shows us that only selfless love and self-giving (distacco) can heal relationships and break the circle of degradation from which human beings cannot get free by their own strength. This has direct implications when it comes to understanding and assuming, for example, recycling, rational use of natural resources, responsible consumption of goods and services, etc.
A Eucharistic Spirituality
For Catholics, the sacrifice par excellence is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ celebrated in the Eucharist. This is the sacrifice that renews the primordial act of Creation through the Redeeming act of the Cross. For Redemptorists, the Eucharist is a privileged setting for an encounter with God the Creator, the Redeeming Son, and the Life-giving Spirit; it is the place that makes us appreciate the gift of our creatureliness and our Redemption. In the Eucharist, as in the liturgy in general, we are invited to embrace the world on a different level. “Water, oil, fire and colours are assumed with all their symbolic force and are incorporated into the praise” (Cfr. LS 235). In the Eucharist “the created finds its highest elevation… “The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation. The world which came forth from God’s hands returns to him in blessed and undivided adoration… Thus, the Eucharist is also a source of light and motivation for our concerns for the environment, directing us to be stewards of all creation” (cf. LS 236).
Pope Benedict XVI, having celebrated the Eucharist in such diverse and varied settings in his life, contemplated its universal and cosmic character: “Even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his Cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the mysterium fidei which is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to him redeemed by Christ” (EE, 8). This beautiful image helps us to reimagine how the mystery of Redemption, celebrated in the Eucharist, has an impact on the whole universe. For Redemptorists, it is not difficult to find these points of union with nature in our liturgies, our preaching and the promotion of Eucharistic piety.
However, the ecological dimension of Eucharistic spirituality remains a vast field to be explored. The sacrificial element of the Eucharist, for example, could strengthen our capacity to relinquish so many environmentally destructive habits and practices. The life that unfolds in nature carries within itself this sacrificial imprint that surrenders life in order to promote it. The life that is extinguished is the generator of a renewed life, like that of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies to bear much fruit (cf. Jn 12:23-24).
The practical consequences of this vision for our ministry should be translated, for example, into the penitential rite within the Eucharist, which could incorporate the ritual elements necessary to restore the sacred order that God established in his Creation / Redemption (cf. Mt 5:23-24). It should also be the opportunity to stir up sorrow and mourning for living species made extinct by human direct action and to reinvigorate our connections and restoration with the created world. For “the brutal consumption of Creation begins where God is not, where matter is henceforth only material for us, where we ourselves are the ultimate demand, where the whole is merely our property and we consume it for ourselves alone. And the wasting of creation begins when we no longer recognize any need superior to our own but see only ourselves. It begins when there is no longer any concept of life beyond death, where in this life we must grab hold of everything and possess life as intensely as possible, where we must possess all that is possible to possess ” (Benedict XVI, 6 August 2008).
Contemplation: meeting God in his Creation
Pope Francis has said that the best antidote to the exploitation of our Common Home is contemplation. When we address the problem of the environmental crisis, we can lose sight of the fact that it is also a spiritual crisis and needs to be addressed from this perspective as well. The lust for money, selfishness and lack of consideration for the other are moral and spiritual realities that contaminate, as noted above, relationships with the Creator and with creatures. The loss of biodiversity, climate change and ecological collapse are the signs and symptoms of that disease which we believers call sin and which is the cause of so many wounds to our Common Home. From there we can see that one of the best contribution we can offer to our world is our individual and communal conversion, which can only be the result of a profound ecological spirituality that manifests itself as contemplation and action.
Redemptorists are well aware of the importance that St. Alphonsus gave to mental prayer (and/or contemplation-meditation) within the broad spectrum of Christian life. Likewise, following the insistence of our Founder, we Redemptorists have found in prayer and contemplation the anchors that connect our mission and spirituality with the realities of the world. In this sense, contemplation/meditation as taught by St. Alphonsus and practised by Redemptorists could now receive this ecological nuance that helps us connect with the beauty of Creation as well as its wounds. St. Alphonsus considered the transformative potential of prayer which he considered an indispensable means of Christian practice. Contemplation, by helping us to become more aware of who we are and what surrounds us, can also help us to heal our relationships with the Created world, and deepen our interconnectedness and interdependence with it.
Creation never ceases to proclaim the glory of God. The question is whether we pay enough attention, and whether we are able to interpret what the Book of Creation tells us. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world (Psalm 19:1-4). Although in modern times we have lost the ability to contemplate and listen to the book of nature, today we feel called to promote a contemplation that reconnects us with the sacredness of the created world and its Creator.
God has written a precious book, “whose letters are the multitude of creatures present in the universe” … “From panoramic vistas to the tiniest living form, nature is a constant source of wonder and awe. It is also a continuing revelation of the divine”. The bishops of Japan, for their part, made a thought-provoking observation: “To sense each creature singing the hymn of its existence is to live joyfully in God’s love and hope”. This contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us, since “for the believer, to contemplate creation is to hear a message, to listen to a paradoxical and silent voice”. We can say that “alongside revelation properly so-called, contained in sacred Scripture, there is a divine manifestation in the blaze of the sun and the fall of night”. Paying attention to this manifestation, we learn to see ourselves in relation to all other creatures: “I express myself in expressing the world; in my effort to decipher the sacredness of the world, I explore my own”. (LS 85).
Questions for dialogue
Contemplation, meditation and prayer have the great potential to change not only our attitudes, but also our habits and behavior in relation to the created world.
- How do I understand the healing potential of our sacramental, spiritual and prayer life?
- Nature has a transformative and healing potential. Many Redemptorists recognize and appreciate nature as a place for prayer and contemplation. The existence of gardens in our communities or the choice of natural spaces for our community retreats are a testimony to this. How can we explain the relevance of natural spaces for contemplation and meditation?
- We Redemptorists know very well that the poor are bearers of an evangelizing potential, which means, they evangelize us. Today we are also becoming aware of the transforming and healing capacity of nature. How can we integrate into our spiritual and liturgical practices the transforming and healing potential of nature?
