Creation Reveals God and His Love

CERC ^ | POPE BENEDICT XVI

[Coleus]

Creation Reveals God and His Love    POPE BENEDICT XVI

---

God's created works are the first sign of his existence and love, says Benedict XVI.

---

From "the greatness and beauty of created things" one knows, by analogy, their author, the Pope said at today's general audience. He was commenting on Psalm 135(136):1-9, as part of his ongoing series of reflections on biblical passages used in the Liturgy of Vespers.

"God does not appear in the Bible as an impassible and implacable Lord, or an obscure and indecipherable being, or fate, against whose mysterious force it is useless to struggle," the Holy Father explained when commenting on the Jewish poetic composition.

About 25,000 pilgrims gathered for the audience in St. Peter's Square.

The Pontiff told them that God manifests himself "as a person who loves his creatures, he watches over them, he follows them in the course of history and suffers because of the infidelity with which the people often oppose his hesed, his merciful and paternal love."

"The first sign of this divine charity," he noted, quoting the psalmist, must be "sought in creation: … the heavens, the earth, the waters, the sun, the moon and the stars."

"Even before discovering the God who reveals himself in the history of a people, there is a cosmic revelation, open to all, offered to the whole of humanity by the Creator," Benedict XVI said.

"There is, therefore, a divine message secretly inscribed in creation," a sign of "the loving faithfulness of God who gives his creatures being and life, water and food, light and time," he added. "From created works one ascends ... to the greatness of God, to his loving mercy."

When the Pontiff finished his address, he put his papers to one side and commented on the thought of St. Basil the Great, a Doctor of the Church, who said that some, "deceived by the atheism they bear within them, imagined the universe deprived of a guide and order, at the mercy of chance."

"I believe the words of this fourth-century Father are of amazing timeliness," said Benedict XVI. "How many are these 'some' today?"

"Deceived by atheism, they believe and try to demonstrate that it is scientific to think that everything lacks a guide and order," he continued. "The Lord, with sacred Scripture, awakens the drowsy reason and says to us: In the beginning is the creative Word. In the beginning the creative Word — this Word that has created everything, which has created this intelligent plan, the cosmos — is also Love."

The Pontiff concluded, exhorting his listeners to allow themselves "to be awakened by this Word of God" and invited them to pray that "he clear our minds so that we will be able to perceive the message of creation, inscribed also in our hearts: The beginning of everything is creative Wisdom and this Wisdom is love and goodness."

[banalblues]

Is that the sound of crickets I hear?

[onedoug]

But for God being more than love, it sounds good to me.

[LiteKeeper]

mega-dittoes

[ELS]

From Created Works One Ascends to the Greatness of God
transcript from audience

[Coleus]

God is love: Simple papal message reflects basics of faith

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even before the release of Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical in late January, it was clear that the theme -- "God is love" -- reflected an emerging focus of his papacy's first year. From his inaugural Mass in April to his recent improvised sermon at a baptismal liturgy, in speeches to world leaders and bishops, the pope has been preaching a basic message -- God is good, God cannot be shut out of personal and social life, and God reaches out to humanity through Jesus Christ.

Many were expecting a rule-tightening papacy from Pope Benedict, who headed the Vatican's doctrinal congregation for 24 years. But instead of loading his talks and texts with Catholic magisterial pronouncements, the pope has used scriptural, philosophical and anthropological sources to stir an awareness of the transcendent purpose of human affairs. As a teacher, the pope is taking a less-dogmatic approach in order to reach a wider audience. He is inviting individuals and modern society to change their relationship with God -- a relationship, he argues, that is often one of indifference or antagonism.

"God does not hide behind clouds of impenetrable mystery. ... He has shown himself, he talks to us and is with us; he lives with us and guides us in our lives," the pope said in a sermon in early January. Two months earlier, speaking to academics at the Vatican, he warned of a tendency for modern men and women to withdraw into a "suffocating existential microcosm, in which there is no place for the great ideals that are open to transcendence and to God."

In his sermon at Christmas, the pope emphasized that God loves everyone, then added: "But some people have closed their hearts; there is no door by which his love can enter. They think that they do not need God, nor do they want him." The encyclical's theme was clearly on the pope's mind last summer, when he confided to a group of priests: "We believe that God exists, that God counts; but which God? A God with a face, a human face, a God who reconciles, who overcomes hatred and gives us the power of peace that no one else can give us.

"We must make people understand that Christianity is actually very simple and consequently very rich," he said.  That would seem to be one of the goals of his first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), to be released Jan. 25.  "God Is Love" strikes some as more fitting for a '60s poster than the cover of a papal document, especially one written by an intellectual like Pope Benedict.

The phrase, taken from the First Letter of John, may be a simple one. But it's the starting point for what the pope hopes will be a deeper conversation with contemporary society, one that involves the nature of love and its relation to freedom, truth and Jesus Christ.  In the pope's view, unless people understand how "God is love," they will never overcome the age-old tendency to mistrust God. In his sermon on the feast of the Immaculate Conception Dec. 8, Pope Benedict said that from the Garden of Eden to modern times humans have suspected that "God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside."

In short, he said, man often believes God's love creates a limiting dependency.