Cosmic Symphony
by Pat Gohn in Faith on Sunday, August 22, 2010 5:05 PM
Creation reveals God’s majesty and mystery in the universe … like a dramatic melody establishing a familiar refrain within the first movement of a cosmic symphony in four parts: creation, the fall, redemption, and finally, heaven. (You’ll never appreciate the finale unless you’ve heard the previous three movements.)
What’s more, creation is God’s first movement or step toward us in his divine plan.
God’s creation of all things seen and unseen, as we pray in the Creed, is a masterful plan to draw us – human persons – into an eternal loving embrace. For the God who is our origin, also longs to be our eternal destiny.
Creation is God’s movement toward us… call it his first overture of love.
Like a well-written symphony, nothing is haphazard or out of place … every note is carefully placed and played to enhance the end result.
St. Bonaventure taught God’s creation was made “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it.” God’s glory is his love and his goodness.
In other words, God’s sole reason to create is to reveal his love and his goodness to us.
Creation is the communication that God uses to get our attention. And we must train our ears to hear God’s love for us in the “music” of creation, not only in history, but in the world we live in.
When we are moved by truly great art – the moments when a piece of music or art reaches in and arrests us – we think of the love of the artist. We long to know the story behind the piece. That is exactly the point here.
Similarly, when a beloved one gives us a gift that touches the heart, we might weep over the intangible love we feel coming through that tangible gift. Creation is like that, too, only bigger and more magnificent … it is tangible, yet it points to an intangible reality: God’s love and goodness stand veiled behind it.
God is Truth, Beauty and Goodness wrapped into One. Creation reflects back to its creator.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in CCC 294, states:
The ultimate purpose of creation is that God who is the creator of all things may as last become “all in all” [1 Cor 15:28].
Simply stated: God wants to become everything to everyone. Creation is his marvelous way of showing it.
God creates by his wisdom and love. This is not chance or blind fate: God intentionally creates. Creation is good and it is ordered, as it reflects his wisdom. Scripture repeatedly reminds us it is good: “And God saw that it was good… very good [Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 31].”
Critical to our understanding of creation is that God creates “out of nothing”, so says CCC 296: “God needs no pre-existent thing or any help in order to create.”
God’s power alone allows him to start with nothing and then – Wow! – Some thing or someone comes into being.
CCC 298:
Since God could create everything out of nothing, he can also, through the Holy Spirit, give spiritual life to sinners by creating a pure heart in them, and bodily life to the dead through the Resurrection. God “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. [Cf. Rom 4:17.]”
And since God was able to make light shine in darkness by his Word, he can also give the light of faith to those who do not yet know him [Cf. Gen 1:3; 2 Cor 4:6.].
Something else that we learn from creation is this: If God loves something he minds it. God stays present to it. God upholds and sustains creation, never abandoning it, but lovingly tends it.
We see this best in God’s response to the fall of humanity, and the need for a savior. The second movement in the cosmic symphony, the fall, shows the need for re-creation that can only be accomplished by a godly touch. This dilemma resolves in the third movement …
God’s desire to “be present” to us, is perfected in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who actually entered into creation, taking on human flesh. We sing about it at Christmas: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity!” (See“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!”)
We pray and profess it in the Creed.
Ultimately, in this third movement, God’s power redeems us through the created gifts of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. God transforms these gifts of creation, so that someday we might be joined to him forever.
The final or fourth movement brings us – and all of creation – in union with God for eternity. But that’s a lesson for another day.
But if you want to read ahead, CCC 1045-1047 is excerpted here:
The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual communion ...
For the cosmos, Revelation affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and man …
The visible universe, then, is itself destined to be transformed… sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ.
—Pat Gohn is a wife & mother celebrating 27 years of Catholic family life. Her Catholic writing, podcasting, and ministry life are found at PatGohn.com.
Resources:
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
