Second in a Series

No matter what we may have heard from teachers of religion or preachers or other adults when we were young, we should realize that Catholicism is not opposed to material creation. Quite the contrary. The Church teaches that material creation is good. It has been created by a loving God.

Catholicism uses matter in the sacraments. Our material bodies are good. In fact, matter, to borrow Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words, “is charged with the grandeur of God.” Nor does Catholicism have a negative attitude toward the human. How could a religion which is based on the Incarnation of the Son of God, on the profound truth that God has become one of us, have a negative attitude toward the human? We should rejoice in our humanity.

In his book “Would You Like To Be a Catholic?” (St. Anthony Messenger Press), Eugene Kennedy emphasizes the role that creation plays in calling us to be religious. Noting that religion is a person’s total reaction to life and that it means more than being passively filled up with the beauty of God’s creation, Kennedy writes:

“In the Catholic understanding of religion we ‘deliberately reach out toward’ the God whom we perceive sacramentally, that is, in the persons, occurrences, events and things that we see. This sacramental sense of the world, of God’s perpetual self-disclosure through creation, is both the foundation and the keystone of the Catholic understanding of religion. It is a response to all of creation by all of us. That is why religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, does not reject but embraces the human, with whose imperfect glories it is completely comfortable.

“Religion is, therefore, our response in a hundred human ways, through art and story and prayer and song, but just as much through the longing we feel deeply within us at the return of spring, or in small signals of love transmitted through eyes and embraces that are as powerful as the large signals of God’s inexhaustible revelation. Everything human counts in Catholicism, everything created bears the genetic code of its Creator.”

I agree completely that everything human counts in Catholicism. Occasionally I have to remind myself that God is not present only inside a church building but is present throughout creation. God’s offer of a love relationship can be present in any situation, can come to us through any event or occurrence in our lives. I believe that it often comes to us through other people. I imagine that it frequently comes to husbands and wives through their spouses.

Whenever I give a homily at a wedding, I stress the sacramental relationship between the man and woman. The Catholic wedding ceremony makes clear that the man and woman are taking responsibility for one another. Neither will go through life alone. To the extent that one person can, each is assuming a special obligation toward the other, an obligation to help the other grow closer to God.

In homilies at a Eucharist, I often stress that there should be no passive Catholics, that the term “passive Catholic” is a contradiction in terms. When we are baptized, we are called to build God’s Kingdom and to spread the Good News. Even 40 years after Vatican II, some Catholics fail to grasp that they are the Church.

What Eugene Kennedy calls the “sacramental sense of the world,” the awareness that God is constantly being revealed through God’s creation, has become a central belief in my own approach to my Catholicism. God is inviting every human being into relationship, into an intimate love relationship with God. This invitation comes ultimately because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But it can reach us through nature, through history, through other human beings.

I am not a person who frequently enjoys the beauties of nature. I am not bragging about this. I wish I was more sensitive and receptive to nature’s beauties because I believe they can speak to us of God. Walks through parks or through the woods or climbing mountains do not have much appeal for me. But that God invites us into relationship, “speaks” to us through other human beings is very clear to me and has been an important part of my life and my relationship with God. One of the strong revelations of God’s love can be the goodness of people and the love that others bestow on us.

Through prayer, reading and spiritual counseling, I am going to try to deepen my sacramental sense. It really is a distinguishing aspect of Catholicism. I think it was author James Joyce who said “Catholicism means here comes everybody!” I think we can say Catholicism means here comes everything!