Bishop Kevin Doran, Bishop of Elphin and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Achonry (Catholic Communications Office archive)
Praying the Mysteries of Creation
If you are invited to a meal in someone else’s home, most of the preparation will probably be done before you arrive. A few hours earlier, there may have been chaos in the kitchen, but hopefully by the time you turn up on the doorstep, everything is beginning to fall into place. As the finishing touches are being put to the meal, you are invited to take your place at the table. As my mother used to say: “it’s nice, for a change, to have it served up to you”.
God welcomes us to His place. He invites us to sit at His table. That is, essentially, what our Scripture readings are about today. We read in the Book of Proverbs:
“Wisdom has built herself a house,
she has erected her seven pillars,
she has slaughtered her beasts, prepared her wine,
she has laid her table.”
This is a way of saying that God has been preparing for us from all eternity, so that, when we arrive on the scene, we can be nourished, not just with good food, but with good conversation and good company, as we sit at His table. The invitation to sit at God’s table is an invitation into relationship.
At the very beginning of the Bible, we read the accounts of the Creation. It is not as if some journalist was standing there taking notes, while the universe took shape, and then submitted a report. There were no witnesses, but centuries later, as people contemplated the world in which they found themselves, they came to the conclusion that this didn’t just happen by accident. There was a kind of order to it; it was the plan of an intelligent and loving Creator. This insight, inspired by the Holy Spirit, comes from reflective people “praying the mysteries of Creation”.
As the Book of Genesis describes it, each element of Creation was put in place to prepare the way for what would come next, first the light, then the water, the vegetation, the fish, the birds and the animals. In the end, God creates man and woman in His own image. It is only when the meal is prepared and the table is set, that we are invited to take our place.
All the care and attention to detail that goes into God’s creation, is about laying the foundations for relationship. There is not much point in using all that creative energy, if there is nobody to sit at the table. The heart of the message of Genesis, is that everything we see around us has been given to us to serve us in living deeply our relationship with God.
Everything God has created is good. In that sense everything in the universe has the capacity to point us in the direction of God. Every flower, every sound, every landscape can become a prayer, if only we allow it. In the ministry of Jesus, and in the Sacramental life of the Church, the simple things of nature are transformed into symbols of the life that comes from God; things like water, light, olive oil, yeast and grain, bread and wine, lambs and goats. But Jesus tells us: “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever”. With these words, He tells us that it is in our relationship with Him that we have eternal life, even now, here on earth. This is especially true of the Eucharist, in which Jesus gives Himself to us. But His Word is also bread for our souls, and we also draw nourishment from our participation in the community of the Church, which is His Body. “This is the bread come down from heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.”
These days, of course, people talk more about evolution than about creation. They point to scientific research and tell us that the universe has been taking shape for millions of years. It is mind-boggling but, of course, it is true. I think we can certainly agree that God’s Creation may not have happened exactly as it is described in the Book of Genesis. That doesn’t mean that Genesis isn’t true. It simply reminds us that Genesis was never meant to be a history book. It is the fruit of a prayerful contemplation on the experience of living in the universe and, the heart of it is our faith that the universe is the fruit of the Creative action of God. That essential truth remains and Science, properly understood, does nothing to undermine it.
Science itself would suggest, indeed that there is some great power at work in the universe, a power far greater and more intelligent than we are. Pope Francis often speaks about our “throwaway culture” which, in recent centuries, has damaged the earth, which is our common home. He has called on us to respect the laws of nature, and science is now telling us the same.
There is really no conflict between faith and science. Both faith and science seek the truth. Science approaches the truth by examining physical evidence. Faith goes beyond the physical evidence to seek answers to questions that science doesn’t address, questions about the meaning and purpose of human existence. But the truth is still the truth, whether it comes through science or through prayerful contemplation.
The pace of scientific research in recent centuries, and especially in our own life-time, has been truly amazing. We don’t have all the answers yet. At times, unfortunately, we have used the fruits of our research in ways which are destructive rather than life giving. But science has shown us, in a way that we never understood before, just how wonderful and how complex is the universe that has been given to us. One example of that is the way in which biology and photography together have allowed us the see the development of the child in the womb and to understand in a new way, what previously we only knew by faith: “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139).
As people of faith, looking back to a time when “the earth was a formless void, and darkness was over the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the waters” (Genesis 1) we can say, “yes indeed God has invited us to sit at his table”, but the preparation for this feast has been going on for much longer than we realised. In terms of the history of the universe, we have only just recently taken our places. We can only be amazed at what is set before us.
Some months ago, after I had been to the Confessional chapel, I went for a walk up beyond ‘Café le Chéile’ towards the Carmelite convent, and I came across the new Creation Walk. It has been put together very recently under the guidance of Father Brian Grogan SJ, and I hope many of you have seen it. If you haven’t, it is well worth a visit.
There are thirty stopping points, or stations, and at each one, we are invited to reflect on a small piece of Scripture and a piece of scientific information, side by side. We are invited to see how many of the things we have recently discovered about the universe, are reflected in the pages of Sacred Scripture. I see this as an invitation to reflect humbly on what we might call the Mysteries of Creation.
We don’t all need to be scientists or theologians; we don’t need to have it all clearly worked out. It is still a work in progress.
What is important, as we reflect on what is put before us, is that we would invite God to speak to our hearts about our own place in the universe and our own mission in the world that He has given us.
- Annual Knock Novena
Bishop Kevin Doran is Bishop of Elphin and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Achonry. This homily was delivered at the Basilica of Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, during the celebration of 3.00pm Mass on 18 August, during the annual Knock Novena. The Novena to Our Lady takes place annually, over nine days, at Knock Shrine, Co Mayo, which is situated in the Archdiocese of Tuam. The novena coincides with the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the silent Apparition of Our Lady, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist in Knock in August 1879. The novena offers pilgrims time and space to reflect, pray and an opportunity to reconnect with their faith in the unique and sacred space of Knock Shrine. Two liturgical sessions are held daily, at 3.00pm and 8.00pm, commencing with concelebrated Mass in the Basilica followed by a procession to the Apparition Gable. A procession of the Blessed Sacrament is held in the afternoon, and a beautiful candlelight procession takes place at night.
- The Story of Knock
At about eight o’clock on the evening of Thursday 21 August 1879, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of the Church at Knock, Co Mayo. Beside them, and a little to the right, was an altar with a cross and the figure of a lamb, around which angels hovered. Fifteen official witnesses – young and old – experienced this silent and miraculous apparition for two hours in pouring rain and recited the Rosary. In 1879 and in 1936 two Commissions of Inquiry accepted their testimony as trustworthy and satisfactory. Today, Knock is an internationally recognised Marian Shrine and has been visited by Saint Pope John Paul II during his 1979 apostolic pilgrimage, and in 2018 by Pope Francis as part of the celebrations for the IX World Meeting of Families in Ireland. On 19 March 2021, Pope Francis officially recognised Knock as an International Marian and Eucharistic Shrine through the Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation. Archbishop Francis Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam, is the custodian of the Marian Shrine and Father Richard Gibbons is parish priest of Knock and rector of the shrine. See www.knockshrine.ie for more details.
