This quote by theologian Elizabeth Johnson illuminates a sense of the sacramentality of creation and the interconnectedness of all creation as one family.
She challenges any sense
of hierarchy that puts humans "above" any other aspect of creation. Instead, we are all part of the mystery of the outpouring of God's creative love. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it many years ago: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God."
The awareness of the sacredness or sacramentality of all of life demands a deep reverence for the earth and
the seas, animals, and everyone, including ourselves. Creation is a doorway to an encounter with God. Reverence involves a deep sense of respect and cares for what God gives life to in each moment.
Johnson also says, "Matter bears the mark of the sacred and has itself a spiritual radiance. Hence the world is holy; nature is holy, bodies are holy, women's bodies are
holy. For the Spirit creates what is physical — worlds, bodies, senses, sexuality, passions — and moves in these every bit as much as in minds and ideas.”
We are invited to move in the world with a deep awareness of the holiness of what God has made; to care for all of life as an expression of God's overflowing love.
We conclude our week's reflections on the season of creation with a prayer by Franciscan theologian Ilia Delio:
