Lectio
“But the Lord will have us neither be ignorant of nature, nor be her slaves, but so to submit to nature, that we reverence the Author of nature, and depart not from God out of love to our parents.”
— Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church, Catena Aurea on Luke 14:25-27
Meditatio
God created all that we see, taste, touch, hear, and smell, and it was good. But it was not good in some past sense, as if He created and then stopped creating. God is creating all that we see, taste, touch, hear, and smell, and it is good. He is creating us and everything around us and inside us now, pouring Himself perpetually in and as His creation, in and as ourselves, and in and as our ability to sense both the world we inhabit and our bodies that inhabit the world. Everything we are and everything we sense is God’s gift of Godself giving Godself to His creation and His creatures in every moment, or rather in the single, unbroken and eternal moment of God’s life. We are created by Love, not out of need but out of sheer generosity, to be loved and to love in return.
Nature, therefore, and our own lives, are the first book of holiness written by the Word of God. Before the Word was written, the Word was spoken into the world as the world itself, an infinite number of echoes of the one true living Word that is Christ. By giving us heaven and earth, light and darkness, day and night, the dome of the sky dividing the waters above from the waters below, dry land and seas, plants yielding seed and trees bearing fruit, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the fish and every living creature of the sea, the birds in the sky, the animals and every creeping thing on the ground, and one another, male and female, made in His image, God gave us Himself, to see, to taste, to touch, to hear, and to smell, so that, through the natural world He created and creates in this moment, we might know Him by His works. We were made for each other, for relationship, by the God who is, Himself, a divine relationship of Persons.
We are meant to be neither ignorant of nature nor enslaved to her. Sabbath is the rest in which that freedom is given: we do not turn away from the world, and we are no longer driven by it, because we receive it as a gift from the One who made it. For through the Sabbath, God gave us His own rest, which He calls holy, and welcomes us into it. Sabbath is neither a pause in God’s giving nor a withdrawal from us. Quite the opposite. Here we are free to receive Him in all of His generosity and in the fullness of His presence. Sabbath is God’s invitation to rest from our grasping after His gifts and to consent to stillness in the Giver Himself. In this way, Sabbath is a share in the one gift of Christ Himself, in whom our rest is found.
Oratio
All From You
every raindrop on my face
autumn leaf before my gaze
the scent of the season
a bird in the distance
the sweetness of honey
all of this from You
Your gifts
Your touch
Your face
Your aroma
Your song
Your taste
all of this from You
Your gifts
but none more delightful
than You Yourself
Contemplatio
You are being created at this very moment, not out of need but out of sheer generosity, and the same Love that spoke the world into being is speaking you now. Nothing is asked of you except to be here, in your body, with whatever you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Let the gift of this moment be enough. Be still in the quiet, willing to be held, and let Him keep creating you as He wills.
Related Scripture
“For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Give Me Thyself: Julian of Norwich and the Folly of Wanting Less Than God (Lectio Divina), which asks what happens when we settle for God’s gifts and miss the Giver who is already present in them.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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