Continuing today our series on Franciscan spirituality, speaking about Franciscan understanding and appreciation of nature.
Even non-Christians, even pagans in our times, and times past as well, felt and feel the charm of nature.
The art and poetry of the ancient Greeks and Romans testified to a lively and profound and delicate and incisive appreciation of nature, but they didn't know how, from that appreciation, they didn't know how to arrive at God in a pure way, in a way without deviations or defects in their understanding.
Nature for the pagans was often the splendid background of human deeds and accomplishments or the good mother that nourishes humanity.
It wasn't unusual for them to consider it divine or good or even scary at times, or to consider it as the seed of mysteries and blind forces that man couldn't control, or to understand nature as a power that man had to ingratiate himself towards with prayers and sacrifices.
At times, the ancients felt a communion with the obscure forces of nature to the point of being intoxicated by unrestrained pleasure-seeking and indulgence.
At times, they detached themselves from it with a cold rationalism that aimed at absolute indifference towards nature.
There's a whole current of ancient wisdom that runs these different threads, from Lao Tzu to the Stoics to the Neoplatonics to Philo to Plotinus, who looked at that part of nature which man has attached to himself, meaning his body, and they looked upon it with a certain aversion and disgust, just like the Dossetists and the Gnostics and the Manichaeans and the Cathars did.
That's one extreme.
And you have the other extreme of the Hedonists and the Epicureans, who see pleasure of the body as really the only goal in life, the only purpose for living.
So the extreme groups never understand nature at all.
As a side note, there's always error, there's always bitterness, there's always a bad spirit guiding the extremes, whether you're a Dossetist or a Hedonist in regards to the body, whether you're a Modernist or a Traditionalist in regards to the Church.
The extremes don't bear good fruit, because the tree is always rotten and corrupt, no matter how beautiful the leaves might appear at times.
Jesus, who lived night and day in the open, who passed through the fields of wheat, who spoke to people on the shores of the sea, who passed through rough waters of the sea, he immersed himself in prayer in the mountains and amid the olive trees as well.
Jesus looked on creation with the simplest, purest, and most penetrating eye that anyone has ever looked upon it.
As Son of God, he knew the essence of things, but he also contemplated those things as man.
And to man, with simple words, he revealed nature's true significance.
He captured the juxtapositions between nature and man's life with spontaneity and with richness.
They are juxtapositions, parallelisms, and symbols that he, in an incomparable manner, sculpted into sentences and painted into parables.
He seemed all intent on searching in nature for the elements, the figures, the expressions, to put together the most understandable and moving discourses that people had ever actually heard.
From Jesus Christ, we learned about who clothes the lilies of the field, Matthew 6:28.
We learned about who feeds the birds of the sky, same verse, Matthew 6:28.
We learned about who makes it rain and makes the sun shine on both the good and the evil, Matthew 5:45.
We know from him that our wounded, fallen nature is like a reed shaken by the wind, Matthew 11:7.
But a reed that he didn't come to break, Matthew 12:20, but rather to give it new life if we welcome his Word.
His Word, which is a seed planted in the field of our soul in order to produce fruit for the kingdom of God, again, Matthew 13:3.
And the seed of his Word produces fruit if we remain in him, how?
Like the vine remains in the branch, right?
United to the vine, John 15.
We produce fruit if we also let the Father prune us so that we can bear more fruit, again, John 15:1.
And the Savior also invites us and teaches us to consider the grain of mustard seed, Matthew 13:31.
The leaven, Matthew 13:33.
The wheat and the tares that grow together, always Matthew 12.
Matthew 13:24.
The beautiful pearl which is more precious than any other thing, Matthew 13:45.
Or the net cast into the sea which gathers every kind of fish, Matthew 13:47.
He also counsels us to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves, again, borrowing from nature, Matthew 10:16.
Jesus presents himself and to his friends as a meek lamb, as meek as a lamb, and as a lamb as well, Revelation 12:11.
And he assures them, assures his friends of the patient care he has for them, like the care of a shepherd for his sheep, John chapter 10.
But probably the most tender similitude infused with the most ineffable heartache at the same time, he reserved that for his last days on earth.
He took it from the farmer's farmyard, from the hen who invites her chicks to find safety under her wings but gets scorned by them.
Remember his words in Matthew 23:37.
He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.
How sad you think about that.
The spiritual truths presented in simple terms by him, the eternal wisdom, terms and images drawn from nature and from the agricultural and pastoral life, they take on a plastic, accessible, unforgettable form with Jesus.
Those spiritual truths are clothed in the discreet and subdued poetry of humble things of everyday life which surrounded the people of his time, and also of our time too.
They became familiar and dear truths to everyone, rather than frightening the people because of their greatness, and they induce us to welcome the mystery of supernatural revelation with the simplicity with which we approach, welcome, and accept the simple mysteries of nature, the simple things of nature.
We have to remember that both of those mysteries, the mysteries of nature and the supernatural truths, they both come from the same source, from the one creator and one redeemer, God.
So let's ask our lady today for the grace to not only have a right view of nature and the natural world, but also let's ask her for the grace to take to heart the expressions and illustrations that our Lord used about nature, and see how they need to be applied to our own spiritual life, for our own spiritual growth.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.