In the United States, we are well into the Fall. Also known as Autumn. Now, I know that not everyone listening to the daily Examen podcast is in the U.S., or even in the Northern Hemisphere. Whenever I talk about the weather getting colder or the leaves turning colors, I will inevitably get a message from someone in Australia, gently taking me to task.
But this week, I’d like to encourage you to appreciate the natural world, whether or not the leaves where you live are red, orange, yellow or green. In Pope Francis’s beautiful encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si',” he speaks about Jesus not only being in the natural world but enjoying the natural world. Just think of the parts of the natural world that he included in his parables: mustard seeds, birds, flowers, clouds and on and on. How could Jesus not have enjoyed the natural world? It makes no sense to think of Jesus as a person who refused to listen to birdsong or ignored the flowers.
Jesus loved creation. How about you? This week, focus the part of the daily Examen where you consider what you’re grateful for on the beauty of creation, whatever it is, wherever you are.
Thanks very much, Fr Martin. It’s been a week of gorgeous autumn weather up here in Ottawa., magnificent natural beauty to ‘keep noticing’ :-).
Your reflections on Jesus' attentiveness to nature, "Consider the lilies of field", "Consider the ravens", plus the intoxicating photo of Fall, puts me in mind of Samuel Coleridge's incomparable words from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner":
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all"