Homily for Tuesday
30th Week of Ordinary Time
Oct. 26, 2021
Rom 8: 18-25
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence,
New Rochelle
By coincidence, St. Paul speaks
today of creation’s “eager expectation” of the “revelation of the children of
God” (8:19), of creation’s redemption “from slavery to corruption” (8:21), 5
days before a U.N. summit meeting on climate change in Glasgow. Paul makes the point that even the created
world has been corrupted by human sinfulness.
For nature suffers death and decay just as human beings do.
The politicians and scientists
in Glasgow aren’t likely to talk about sin except in terms of what we do to
destroy or to preserve the environment.
Paul, of course, wasn’t thinking about environmentalism. He had a biblical outlook. According to Genesis, sin destroyed creation’s harmony. Jesus Christ has begun its restoration. When humanity is set free from the bondage of death because of faith in the resurrection, when we rise in Christ, creation too will be fully restored.
We don’t know what the new
world of the resurrection will be like, the new Jerusalem. Do we imagine an amazing, peaceful natural
world, Eden restored, Isaiah’s vision of the wild beasts at peace with oxen,
lambs, and little children (11:6-9)? But
we live in hope of humanity’s being saved after the travails of our suffering,
and our enjoying the fullness of life God planned for us. And why not with other created realities too?
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