The Holiness of Falling in Love
St Francis (of Assisi) invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants to us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. Beyond the language of mathematics and biology he takes us to the heart of what it is to be human …. Just as happens when we fall in love. (Laudato Si)
Do we need to rediscover and embrace our graced imagination, to reawaken and nourish it, so as to make headway and heart-way in these new, alluring, often confusing but always rewarding insights about the links between Creation, Incarnation and evolution?
‘If Christianity is not only to survive but to flourish’ Ilia Delia says powerfully, ‘it needs a new imagination for the earth community, a new dream for the cosmos, a new understanding of Christ in evolution as the mystery of the whole, which includes other religions, cultures and the whole of the whole, and yes, other planets and forms of life. In short, Christianity needs a new direction, one pointing not upward but forward, not towards “heaven above” but to a new future of healthy relationships in the cosmos, a new heaven on earth, which is what Jesus prayed for …… Christianity must speak to the world of something new emerging from within, a new life, a new future, transcending the present world towards a deepened, more fruitful way of living. As we evolve towards a new level of religious consciousness, we must let go of the past and engage the future because the future is upon us. Without engagement toward new reality, Christ cannot come to be.
Our perennial quest is to discover the divine in the depths of matter, to be blessed with the grace of imagination and recognition. Ursula King explores the vision of Teilhard de Chardin, “The concrete tangibility of the earth, the fragility of the living world, the haunting beauty of nature – all these, for Teilhard potentially a means for divine disclosure. The human experience of the senses – of seeing, touching and feeling – could reveal a path leading to the “heart of reality” to God. Teilhard possessed an extraordinary sense of physical concreteness of the strength and revelatory power of all created things in this world. He also felt a great yearning for a deeper unity of all things, with all the diversity ultimately held together by God.
Astonishing Secret