God Who Created All Things

Agathla Peak, Northeastern Arizona, 7100 feet

Some thoughts on the mystery hidden from ages past in God who created all things…

My family and I recently spent a week on vacation touring a little bit of the American southwest. We covered a little over 1,500 miles in a week, and as we drove along admiring God’s creation, I had some time to reflect. One of the highlights of the trip for me was Monument Valley in northern Arizona and the Valley of the Gods is southern Utah. There’s something about the immensity of this land, the sheer size and beauty and emptiness of it, that evokes a sense of wonder and of the spiritual.

As we went along, we would occasionally pass a solitary dwelling, or a small group of dwellings, and then we’d cover vast stretches before coming upon another. I thought of the Native American peoples who eked out a living in this harsh, dry land for centuries and centuries before the first Spanish explorers and missionaries came. I imagined them looking out across the towering rock formations and the great sky, perhaps sitting in front of their hogans at night and marveling at the countless stars twinkling in the sky. These native peoples were a deeply spiritual people; they possessed an instinctive awareness of the eternal, and from looking at creation itself, they knew in their hearts that there was a power greater than themselves…

“For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made…”
--Romans 1: 19&20

These Native Americans never heard of the God of Abraham or the name of Jesus the Nazorean, and so they looked to nature to form their spiritual beliefs. When we visited Mesa Verde in Colorado, we sat in the ancient cliff dwellings, and the ranger there told us the creation story of the Pueblo Indians. As I pondered on these things, I knew a certain understanding.

At times in my life, I’ve been troubled by this: if there is one God, why are there so many different religions? When I was a young man, I wondered what made the Christian religion I’d been brought up in any more true than any other religion. And when I couldn’t find any satisfactory answer, I declared that all religions were just myths made up by people to explain things they didn’t understand. Many years later, someone told me that religion was our human way of reaching for God, and the person of Jesus was God’s way of reaching back to us humans. At the time, I didn’t understand it; it sounded like a rationalization to me. But that day I looked out on the Valley of the Gods, I understood that it was true.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that the desire to know God is written on the human heart:

“As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My being thirsts for God, the living God. When can I go and see the face of God?”
--Psalms 42: 2&3


“…My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.”
--Psalm 84: 3

God speaks to us in many ways—through His creation, in our hearts, and in the words of Sacred Scripture. This past week, as I was pondering on these things, He surprised me in the first reading for Wednesday, October 25th, in the words of the Apostle Paul:

“Brothers and sisters: You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly earlier. When you read this you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to human beings in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy Apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same Body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.
Of this I became a minister by the gift of God’s grace that was granted me in accord with the exercise of his power. To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for all what is the plan of the mystery hidden from ages past in God who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the principalities and authorities in the heavens. This was according to the eternal purpose
that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness of speech and confidence of access through faith in him.”
--Ephesians 3: 2-12

Praise of God the Creator

Dusty cone nebula,located 2500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros




Bless the LORD, my soul! LORD, my God, you are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and glory, robed in light as with a cloak. You spread out the heavens like a tent; you raised your palace upon the waters. You make the clouds your chariot; you travel on the wings of the wind. You make the winds your messengers; flaming fire, your ministers. You fixed the earth on its foundation, never to be moved. The ocean covered it like a garment; above the mountains stood the waters. At your roar they took flight; at the sound of your thunder they fled. They rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them. You set a limit they cannot pass; never again will they cover the earth. You made springs flow into channels that wind among the mountains. They give drink to every beast of the field; here wild asses quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of heaven nest; among the branches they sing. You water the mountains from your palace; by your labor the earth abounds. You raise grass for the cattle and plants for our beasts of burden. You bring bread from the earth, and wine to gladden our hearts, Oil to make our faces gleam, food to build our strength. The trees of the LORD drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted. There the birds build their nests; junipers are the home of the stork. The high mountains are for wild goats; the rocky cliffs, a refuge for badgers. You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun that knows the hour of its setting. You bring darkness and night falls, then all the beasts of the forest roam abroad. Young lions roar for prey; they seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and rest in their dens. People go forth to their work, to their labor till evening falls. How varied are your works, LORD! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Look at the sea, great and wide! It teems with countless beings, living things both large and small. Here ships ply their course; here Leviathan, your creature, plays. All of these look to you to give them food in due time. When you give to them, they gather; when you open your hand, they are well filled. When you hide your face, they are lost. When you take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust from which they came. When you send forth your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD be glad in these works! If God glares at the earth, it trembles; if God touches the mountains, they smoke! I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live. May my theme be pleasing to God; I will rejoice in the LORD. May sinners vanish from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, my soul! Hallelujah!
--Psalms 104

Healing

This morning as I was making breakfast for the kids, I was thinking about my work at the hospital. In the critical care unit where I work, we are very good at helping people to survive life-threatening situations. For example, if someone is in respiratory distress, we can give them steroids to reduce inflammation and open up the airways; we can give them diuretics if there is fluid in the lungs; we give supplemental oxygen using various methods, and we can even place them on a mechanical ventilator which can literally do the work of breathing.

However, all of this “intensive care” only helps the patient survive the immediate crisis. The underlying pathology—the asthma or emphysema causing the airways to constrict, the failing heart causing fluid to back up into the lungs, or an infection causing the patient to go into septic shock—still exists.

Once we have a patient stabilized, sometimes we can treat the underlying disease or injury. Some diseases can be managed with diet and exercise, and by a doctor prescribing the correct medications; a skilled physician can remove a tumor or perform bypass surgery on an occluded blood vessel; antibiotic drugs can fight off infectious organisms; but if any healing occurs, it is done by the body itself.

A few years ago, I was taking a class for an advanced certification, and on this particular day we were studying the nervous system. As the instructor was explaining the various control and feedback and alternate pathways, I was impressed with what an incredible and complex design our human bodies are. I kept thinking to myself, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made! You are fearfully and wonderfully made!”

“I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew;
How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of them!
Were I to count, they would outnumber the sands; to finish, I would need eternity.”
--Psalms 139: 14, 17, 18

After breakfast this morning, I dropped little Isabella off at her preschool, and I ran into an old friend who is currently fighting cancer, and we chatted for a few minutes. I was reminded that just yesterday, I was reading some letters written by another friend who is also fighting cancer: she described her uncertainty and emotions of coming to grips with her unexpected battle. And I keep in my heart another friend: she lives in Louisiana and also is battling cancer—together with some other friends, we once climbed a mountain together, a mountain with a cross on top.

And then at Mass this morning, I learned that today is the Feast of Saint Luke. This is incredible because Luke was a physician, a medical doctor. He was also a disciple of Jesus, tradition says one of the seventy-two, and as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, he understood the healing power of the Word of God.

Now, as I am writing these thoughts, I am remembering friends and loved ones who have lost the battle with cancer: my Uncle Randy who died over twenty years ago from esophageal cancer; Linda Martin, a coworker and dedicated ICU nurse; and Gerri, one of my son Johnny’s preschool teachers.

“A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, you have been our refuge through all generations. Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God. A thousand years in your eyes are merely a yesterday, But humans you return to dust, saying, "Return, you mortals!" Before a watch passes in the night, you have brought them to their end; they disappear like sleep at dawn; they are like grass that dies. It sprouts green in the morning; by evening it is dry and withered… Our life ebbs away… our years end like a sigh. Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong; Most of them are sorrow and toil; they pass quickly, we are all but gone…”
--Psalms 90: 1-6, 9 and 10

This does not cause me sorrow or despair. Rather it inspires me! Don’t get me wrong—I have no death wish. Life is a precious gift! God gives life every chance, and He expects us to do the same. But in the eternal view I am inspired in knowing that every day is win-win; every day is a gift! I am inspired to make my life count. Indeed, the Psalmist continues:
“Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart… Fill us at daybreak with your love, that all our days we may sing for joy… Show your deeds to your servants, your glory to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God be ours. Prosper the work of our hands! Prosper the work of our hands!”
Psalms 90: 12, 14, 16, 17

And in today’s Gospel reading, Saint Luke recounts Our Lord’s instructions to the seventy-two disciples: Jesus tells them to heal the sick, and tell them:
“The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”
--Luke 10: 9

Prosper the work of our hands, Lord! Prosper the work of our hands!
Saint Luke, pray for us!