chapter in the Catechism (up to CCC 412).
These introductory paragraphs present us with what seems like a paradox. On the one hand, creation concerns the beginning of all things. The Bible opens with the account of the creation of heaven and earth. Creation is what comes first (279); creation is the foundation on which God builds his saving plan (280).
But then the Catechism reveals that there is, in fact, something that comes even before creation, something even more foundational. Creation itself is founded on the mystery of Christ: the Father creates all things through and for his beloved Son. For, ultimately, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). We understand what God created in “the beginning” only if we search for the purpose of creation in what is uncreated: the love of God that has no beginning. In the eternity of the Father’s loving will, creation was destined for glory in Christ (280).
The Catechism points us to the Scriptures and to the liturgy to learn these things, to Saint Paul who wrote of the glory awaiting the whole of creation (Rom 8:18), and, above all, to the central liturgy of the Church, the Easter Vigil. There, in the darkness and stillness of the night as the Church awaits the burst of the new life of Jesus’ resurrection, the beauty of God’s plan is unfolded for us in the readings that lead us from the first creation and garden to the re-creation of all things in Christ and the garden of the Resurrection. The seven days of creation are crowned with the “eighth day,” the eternal day of Christ’s victory (281).
Day 43
CCC 282-289
Catechesis on Creation
God speaks to every person, every day; every day “pours forth speech” from God (Ps 19:2). The mercies of the Lord are “new every morning” (Lam 3:22). God speaks to us in the creation around us; this is where every person can go to listen to God, as attested to in the opening words of the Bible. There we have a magnificent series of acclamations — “God said …” and the clear realities of light, earth, sun and moon, stars, trees, animals — and finally man himself — appear in their goodness (see Gn 1).
These words from God can raise in us the most basic questions of all, as the realities of creation force us to consider the source and meaning of our own existence (282-284). Saint Augustine says in his Confessions, “I have become a question to myself.” As the Catechism illustrates, the question concerning the “truth about creation is so important for all of human life” (287) that it has given rise to many different philosophies and attempted answers (285). And so God has provided another book to be read alongside the “book of nature,” the “book” of his revelation in Tradition and Scripture. This book provides a trustworthy interpretation of the “words” we find in nature. The two books must be read together (288).
Many scriptural passages on the subject of creation appear, therefore, in the footnotes of today’s reading. The Catechism reminds us of the principles for interpreting the Scriptures that it has already presented in CCC 109-119. Notice in particular the clear assistance given to us in CCC 289 on how to interpret the first three chapters of Genesis (the Catechism will return to this point in CCC 390). These chapters are “uniquely important” and “remain the principal source” for teaching on creation since they express certain key truths about creation: (i) its origin and end in God; (ii) its order and goodness; (iii) the vocation of man; and (iv) the drama of sin and hope of salvation.
Day 44
CCC 290-292
Creation — Work of the Holy Trinity
We are radically dependent on God. Every breath of air we draw into our lungs is given to us by God in his unceasing love, moment by moment. Every part of creation we see around us — the children playing in the street, the clouds above us, the humming bird outside of the window — is held in being, second by second, by God in his faithfulness.
The crucial point to which the Catechism draws our attention here is the thoroughgoing difference between God and his creation. The word “create,” it notes, is only ever used in relation to God. God’s relationship to us is one of creating. Our relationship to other things, on the other hand, is always one of making. We do not “create” anything, but rather “make” things from that which God creates. God is eternal. Unlike God, every created thing at some point began to be.
How are we to think of this absolute dependency? The medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich recorded in her Revelations of Divine Love a vision of the whole of creation as being like a small acorn lying in the palm of her hand: “I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.” The Catechism draws on a similar image here, taken from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons: the Father creates and holds all things in existence in his two hands, the Son and the Spirit (292). We are held and loved every moment by the Father who creates and “holds us together” by his beloved Son and pours out upon us every good thing in his Holy Spirit (291).
Day 45
CCC 293-294
“The World Was Created for the Glory of God”
These wonderful paragraphs dispel the misunderstanding that is so prevalent, the idea that creatures can be of benefit to God, that God can gain from us.
That the world is made for God’s glory cannot mean that it increases his glory, for he is the fullness of every perfection and good: “And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (Jn 1:16). Our goodness adds nothing to God. Our praise cannot be useful to him.
What, then, is the “glory of God”? It is the “manifestation and communication of his goodness” (294). God, who is All-Good, wills to share his goodness. Our goodness, our love, and our praise, then, do not benefit God. But they are important to him because we are important to him. God longs to draw us to himself, nurturing our virtue and goodness; he longs for the beauty around us, and his own perfect beauty, to awaken our praise because he wants our happiness. He wants us to be “fully alive” (294). Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). The world was created so that it might point us to this abundance, through the natural glories around us and finally through being the home for the Incarnate Son who came to bestow his grace on us. The Father longs for us, to make us able to participate in every way in what he has to give — himself. This is why God creates, so that he can fill creation with his goodness and so draw us to himself, to become “all in all” (294).
Day 46
CCC 295-301
The Mystery of Creation
This section of the Catechism wants us to see that creation is a mystery: it is luminous with a spiritual, personal presence. It is not a flat, self-subsisting intricate mechanism, but has depth and carries meaning.
The Catechism speaks of creation being “addressed” to us (299), like a letter. And because God creates everything out of love (295), it is a love letter. Saint Augustine described creation as the ring given by the Beloved. Whenever we see creation, we also “see” the love of God. God did not have to write this letter or give us this ring. He chose to, because he loves us. And
