Another Season of Creation is upon us, during which we appreciate God’s creation and strive to care for it. At a moment when we are in an ecological crisis. Facts about climate change, deforestation, water shortages, bleached coral reefs, and species extinction bombard the airwaves and news feeds. Everyone knows that this fragile planet is in peril.
However, these facts have no power over anyone if one does not care. There may be many reasons for such apathy. One may feel powerless in the face of this enormous problem. Or one may believe that a personal sacrifice will not make a significant difference if millions of others continue enjoying a lavish lifestyle. Or one may be unaware of what could be done, and what is worth doing.
What is called for is an ecological conversion that transforms the way we see the world around us. I am convinced that only a spiritually-rooted ecological conversion will be an enduring one. Such a conversion will overcome the apathy that stems from powerlessness, selfishness, or plain ignorance.
For Catholics, creation matters because God loves it into being and holds it in existence. If we love God, we ought to love what God loves. The creatures around us are in a loving relationship with us because we have the same Creator. In the Second Creation story in Genesis, God creates humans and animals out of the same “dust of the ground.” And as we profess on Ash Wednesday, we know that all creatures are dust and to dust we will all return.
Other creatures are icons of the divine. When we contemplate traditional icons, we contemplate part of the Logos. Icons speak to us, inviting us to participate in the mystery of God. They draw us out of ourselves and move our attention to the transcendent divine, of which an icon is but a window. Yet, the tiny glimpses of God that the icons provide increase our love for God. Icons point to God as the reality behind them. In an ecological sense, we can similarly see all creatures as windows into the divine reality that grounds their existence. Creatures provide us with glimpses of the infinite reality. Our love for God, then, enables us to contemplate these creatures with reverence, thus inspiring a care and concern for them.
Saint Ignatius begins the Spiritual Exercises with the meditation on the First Principle and Foundation (FPF) in which he writes about God’s goal for human existence. God created humans to love God, and so humans live fulfilling lives when they live according to God’s hopes and desires. Such a teleological view of our existence sets the tone for a spiritual conversion to becoming Christ’s disciples, which is the end goal of the Exercises.
Similarly, grounding our care for creation in our love for God, our ecological conversion ought to begin with an “Ecological First Principle and Foundation.” These axiomatic statements will form the basis of further reflection and inspire us to a spiritually grounded ecological conversion. Modifying Ignatius’ FPF in light of the ecological crisis of the present age, I have composed the following Ecological FPF.
“God created all creatures, not only humans, to praise Him (Gen 1, Ps 150). We humans, made in God’s image and likeness, fulfill our purpose by praising God and by helping all other creatures praise God.
God created all creatures out of love, sustaining and nurturing us out of sheer generosity on God’s part. Consequently, we have no right to any of God’s gifts. And, we ought to be indifferent towards these gifts and free from their disordered use.
Our sinfulness poses obstacles in this aspired life of indifference and freedom. We grasp at things for the sake of power, we get distracted by our desire for pleasure, or we become lazy due to apathy.
Having considered these things, through the grace of God, we ought to continually strive to rid ourselves of these obstacles, and instead bring ourselves and all creatures to praise God.”
This ecological FPF lays the groundwork for an ecological conversion characterized by a boundless concern for all of God’s creatures: the rich and the poor, human and non-human creatures. By carefully pondering these statements in prayer and through the power of the Spirit, we will see creation through God’s loving gaze. A sense of awe and wonder at the Creator’s handiwork will overcome us, inspiring us to live an ecologically compassionate lifestyle.
Such a spiritually grounded conversion then manifests in concrete changes to our lifestyle and behavior. “Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi” is a Latin phrase that translates to “as we pray, so we believe, as we believe, so we live”. It expresses the interconnectedness of prayer, belief, and life within our Catholic context. How is a Catholic lifestyle so divergent from Catholic prayer and belief? One may then wonder, as Malcolm Muggeridge did: “How is it possible to look for God and sing his praises while insulting and degrading his creatures?”
Among all creatures, animals are the closest to us in their ability to praise God. Humans have been described as social animals, political animals, and rational animals, implying that humans are animals with special qualities. But animals, especially mammals and birds, possess many human qualities. They can love and can receive love. Almost in the way humans do: they play, they raise their young with loving concern, and they strive to survive in a difficult world. As mentioned, the book of Genesis tells us that animals and humans were created from the same dirt (Genesis 2:7, 19).
When we live according to the values of “throwaway culture”, animals are most affected by our insatiable consumerism. Our callousness towards a chicken on a factory farm has worse consequences than dumping garbage next to a beautiful tree. While both practices are abhorrent, it is obvious that the chicken suffers more than the tree due to our callousness.
Additionally, we ought to be careful not to unceremoniously lump the rest of creation as one giant, amorphous entity: the earth. We need to see the gradations in the creatures and note the different moral standings of mountains, rivers, trees, and animals. Just as God knows every bird (Psalm 50:11) and expresses concern for each of them (Matthew 10:29), we ought to see each animal and bird as individuals, acknowledging the higher moral concern we owe to animals. This concern would be borne out in the ways we treat them, especially in our food system, where we mete out the most degrading treatment. We can no longer treat these creatures who praise God with the utter cruelty of factory farms.
Ecologically converted Catholics could pray together, with and for all creatures. Through the Eucharistic prayers at Mass, we lead all creatures in praising God. In Eucharistic Prayer III, we pray: “You are indeed Holy, O Lord, and all you have created rightly gives you praise, for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit, you give life to all things and make them holy…” And in Eucharistic Prayer 4: “we confess your name in exultation, giving voice to every creature under heaven…” We profess that every creature gives God praise, and humans give voice to that praise during the Eucharistic liturgy. A regular awareness of other creatures in our prayer will sustain our ecological conversation in a turbulent world that’s prone to despair and backsliding.
As we strive for a spiritually rooted ecological conversion, may we remember to see all of God’s creatures as exactly that: God’s creatures loved by God in their individuality and uniqueness. That will inform our particular treatment of them as a lived reality of our professed beliefs.