A Franciscan View of Creation: Learning to Live in a Sacramental World

Conclusion: What is Ours to Do?

45 A Franciscan View of Creation CONCLUSION: WHAT IS OURS TO DO? S tanding on such a deep and powerful tradition, how should Franciscans today relate to creation? How can we understand the human journey to God as one that includes creation? How can the tradition help us overcome violence to creation and restore relationships of peace and justice? Is it enough simply to “recycle” or “turn off the lights” or does our tradition call us to a more radical stance with regard to creation? Here are some points to consider: • We must realize our interconnectedness to creation. Part of our poverty is to realize our dependency on the things of the created world. The Franciscan tradition, left to us by Francis, offers the familial model of relating to creation. Franciscan spirituality means changing our internal focus or consciousness. Anew consciousness must call us to an active stance as “brother” and “sister ” to the non-human creation. • Developing a new Franciscan consciousness also means an awareness of the intrinsic value of everything that exists. We need to pay attention to the details of creation and strive to gaze contemplatively on nature. Such gazing into things is a way of seeing Christ. • Following the Franciscan emphasis on a Christ-centered universe , contact with nature needs to be a fundamental component of our Franciscan way of life. A trip to the ocean, a walk in the woods, working in the garden, etc. are important, not primarily for what they produce, but for their inherent Christ-contact . As Hopkins wrote to a friend: “I think that the trivialness of life is, and personally to each one ought to be seen to be, done away with by the Incarnation.”118 • We must come to realize that our sinful actions are at the root of our present ecological crisis and thus our need for ongoing penance or conversion. The Franciscan practice of penance embod- 46 Ilia Delio, O.S.F. ies humility. It consists in acknowledging our brokenness and sinfulness. The practice of “eco-penance” is both an interior attitude and a praxis. It can promote consistency between the statement of values we make about creation and our behavior toward it. • Believing in the inherent goodness of creation and the dignity of each created thing should lead to a stance on environmental justice . Justice entails right and loving relationships and thus a stance to oppose or change relationships that exploit the poor or cause environmental hazards to the poor. • Awareness of biological diversity as an expression of the goodness of God means addressing the interdependence of the many forms of life on our planet. It is realizing that injury or extinction of one species can affect an entire ecosystem. It is having a greater awareness that we and the universe are “joined at the hip.” • Finally, it is helpful to realize that we live in an evolutionary universe with Christ as the center and goal. To be Franciscans in an evolutionary universe is to have an awareness that our actions can help move the universe towards its fulfillment in Christ, or they may thwart this goal. What we do matters to the matter of the universe. The world will not be destroyed. It will be brought to the conclusion that God intends for it from the beginning . And that beginning is intertwined with the mystery of the incarnate Word and the glorified Christ. With Christ, all the lines of energy in the universe are coordinated and unified; all comes together in unity and coherence; and all is finally brought to its destiny with God.119 How shall we come to stand in the midst of creation as poor mendicants? The life of Francis shows us that only Christ can lead us to the truth of who we are in relation to God, the truth that all creation is on a journey to God. As pilgrims and strangers in the world we are called to be in solidarity with every aspect of creation, realizing that creation is incomplete and yearns for its completion in God. As Franciscans in the twenty-first century, we are heirs to a rich theological tradition that can provide a framework for incorporating environmental sensitivity into religious practice and activity. 47 A Franciscan View of Creation We are a resource for the Church, and we are capable of embodying Francis’s passionate love of creation in our word and in...