This week’s Clergy Corner
taken from the July 12th Bulletin:
All Creation Waits
One phrase from Saint Paul caught my attention this week: “Creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.”
Notice Paul’s words. He does not say that only humanity waits. He says that all creation waits.
We often picture eternal life as something that concerns only human souls. We think about leaving this world behind and going somewhere else. Saint Paul gives us a larger vision. God created the heavens and the earth. God called his creation good. Sin wounded our relationship with God, with one another, and with the world around us. Christ came not to abandon the Father’s creation, but to redeem it.
Paul describes creation groaning in labor pains. We understand that groaning. We see disease, violence, storms, pollution, hunger, decay, and death. We also feel groaning within ourselves. We know that God created us for more than suffering, division, and the grave.
Yet Paul does not surrender to despair. Labor pains point toward birth. Creation groans because God has begun something new in Jesus Christ. The Resurrection announces the future God intends for his children and for all that he has made.
Isaiah gives us another image. Rain and snow fall from heaven and make the earth fruitful. God’s word works in the same way. God speaks, and his word accomplishes its purpose. In the Gospel, Jesus scatters that word like seed. Some hearts resist it. Some receive it only briefly. Other hearts welcome it and produce an abundant harvest.
God has planted his word within us. What kind of fruit will we produce?
Our hope for eternal life should change the way we live now. We cannot claim to love the Creator while carelessly damaging his creation. We cannot wait for the fullness of God’s Kingdom while ignoring suffering people, wasting what others need, or treating the earth as though it belongs only to us.
Christ calls us to live as children of God today. We can protect what God created, use his gifts responsibly, care for animals with kindness, and leave something beautiful for the generations that follow us.
All creation waits. It waits for God to complete his work. It also waits for the children of God to live and act like his children and care for creation entrusted to us.
– Deacon Frank Cerullo