11-18-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
November 18, 2023
St. Augustine, one of the central figures of the Christian faith and defender of orthodoxy, was in fact a closet heretic. What I mean by that is Augustine often shared thoughts that were a bit outside of traditional thinking, but he was able to get away with it. One such quote is about the beauty of creation being God’s biography. Augustine wrote, “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?” Some might declare such words as heretical or even blasphemous, but I find them insightful and liberating. It doesn’t mean I dismiss scripture, but the Source of Being, or call it the divine artist, is revealed in the artistry around us.

Allow my senses to glimpse beyond the beauty of creation so that I might see the hint of your creative presence in all that is, O Creator God. Amen.