Book: Nature Praising God

Nature Praising God by Dermot A Lane. Published by Messenger Publications.

This might be a slim volume but its content is massive. During the lockdown caused by the Covid-19 crisis, streets were emptied, churches closed, and a relationship with nature developed in which questions to be asked again in light of the crisis arose: Is God present in nature? Is communion with God in nature possible? Is there a relationship between the God of creation, the God of history, and the God we worship in Sunday liturgies? These questions make Dermot Lane's vision and effort all the more vital and challenging at this time.

It was Karl Rahner who said: "If we are talking about God being absent ..then it is not God we are are talking about." Two realities that dominate Dermot Lane's approach are Holy Spirit and Incarnation. Or put it this way....No Holy Spirit...No Incarnation.

St.Luke's account of the Conception is central...

Ch.1 .V35. 'and the angel said to her, " The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son 'of God.' The relationship with her Son begins in her womb ...interiority....and here's thing...because of that conception....the same Spirit is at work in us.... Deep Incarnation. St Paul grasped it after his conversion and hammered it home to his new converts the troublesome Galatians. Ch 2v20 .." I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives in me; " and Ch 4 v6 "And because you are sons, ,God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying , Abba! Father."

St Augustine, centuries later, made the same journey to the interior....Addressing God..."yet man, this part of your creation, desires to praise you. You make us delight in praising you, because you have made us inclined towards you, and our heart is restless until it begins to find rest in you." Later Augustine would say in these Confessions..." God was inside while I was looking outside "

And to bring it up to date....Pope Francis in that beautiful reflection on Epiphany puts it thus..."God always loves us with a greater love than we have for ourselves. This is his secret for entering our hearts."

Christ does not do extinction...nor do we his followers....We love God's creation.....we guard and protect our world...we are passionate ecologists. Christ does eliminate Evil..Sin..Darkness...but on an ongoing basis conserves and renews His Father's Creation. Matthew's ecology verses.. Ch. 6 v26..."Look at the birds of the air; they neither nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." And again. . Ch 10 v.29..."Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? and not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's will."

Almost the last words of the New Testament sum it up...Rev. Ch.21 v.5...'And he who sat upon the throne said.." Behold , I make all things new." The Dominican scholar Wilfrid J. Harrington..comments ..on these verses.. " Note that God does not declare that he is making things but that he is making all things new---Renovation rather than new creation."

If there is one belated new year resolution that one might make...might it not be get hold of Dermot Lane's book. It's not an easy read at times but dig deep and there is spiritual gold there. It would be well used by prayer groups, by scripture study gatherings, by sacramental preparation parish groups, and especially Liturgy preparation groups...as Dermot Lane rightly points out.much work has to be done on Liturgy.

Fr Teilhard De Chardin ....Priest...Scientist...Mystic.. has done so much to bring Christ and the Holy Spirit back into the centre of our Spiritual Life. A man who suffered much for his belief..he never wavered in his Faith in the Incarnation and even more in Deep Incarnation (Cosmic Christ). He wrote in his spiritual classic: The Divine Milieu - "By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see." The Holy Spirit make is see.

May I wish all our readers a year that is blessed with Love and Happiness and Joy and Hope.

For more information and to order copies, see:
www.messenger.ie/product/nature-praising-god-towards-a-theology-of-the-natural-world/