BISHOP BARRON ON CREATION

"At creation, God speaks the world into being, meaning he imbues it with intelligibility. This begins with "Let there be light." From God comes Eden was created as a temple, a place where humanity is doing what it's supposed to do:  the whole purpose of humanity is to lead all of creation in a chorus of right praise to the Lord. From this rightly ordered humanity, comes a rightly ordered world. The rivers that flow from Eden to signify life. Life comes through the rightly ordered praise of God. "

In contrast to other mythical creation accounts, God's way of bringing order into the world is through non-violence, by "loving it into existence."

BISHOP BARRON ON CREATION & THE MASS

“The Mass is the supreme moment of worship. Brothers and Sisters, this is such an important point, I think it's one of the best ways to read the whole Bible. The Bible is about right and wrong forms of worship. Now here’s what I mean, go back to the very beginning of the Bible, go back to the book of Genesis, as God brings forth creation, in that beautiful poetic text, (let there be light, and there was light. Let the earth be formed, and so it was. And let the earth be filled with animals, and plants of every kind, and let it be filled with things that crawl upon the earth,( right? (And then evening came, morning followed the first day. Evening came, morning followed the second day.( Notice please this stately procession of elements coming forth from God. What does that remind you of? See, we Catholics are kind of clued in a bit. It(s a bit like a liturgy isn(t it, like a liturgical procession. The elements coming forth. Now, very important, what shouldn(t we do with these things? Now think of sun, and moon, and planet, the earth, the mountains, animals, we shouldn’t worship them, right? In the ancient world at one time or another, all those things were worshiped. The author of Genesis is saying, Don’t worship them, they’re creatures. But , precisely because they come forth in this orderly, liturgical way, we understand their purpose. They are meant to turn toward the creator in right praise. Now , who comes at the end of a liturgical procession? The one who will lead the praise, right? So all the ministers come in. imagine the servers, and the ministers, and the lecture, and the incense bearer, and so on, all coming forth. Who comes at the end, but the priest or the bishop who will lead the praise? Who comes at the end of the greatest procession of creation, but human beings. Now we get it. Now we get it. Our whole purpose is to be the priest, if you want, of creation, leading all of creation in a great chorus of praise to the creator God. In that act of adoration, we realize who we are meant to be, we realize our deepest identity. That word I love by the way, adoration, Mass is the supreme moment of adoration. Ad ora, in Latin, ora means mouth, Adora, to the mouth of.  When you adore, you are mouth-to- mouth with God. It means you're aligned unto God. Here we are aligned unto God, consciously worshiping him, and leading a whole chorus of praise of all creation. That’s the biblical vision of the good life, of the rightly ordered life. Where does trouble come from? Fellow sinners, so we all know the story. 

Trouble comes from bad praise. I challenge you, go through the whole Bible, I challenge you to find an exception to that. When Israel goes off-kilter, it’s because of bad praise. Worshiping not the creator, but the creature. Whether it’s idols, whether it’s political powers, whether it’s your own culture, whether it’s the king, whatever, when you worship, that word’s lovely too by the way, worship in English is from an older English word, worth-ship. What(s the highest worth to you? That’s the question.  All you need to know about a person you can learn by asking one question, what do you worship? Because what’s of highest value to you, will now become the ordering principle of your whole life, right? Human beings are meant to worth-ship, worship God. In that process draw all of creation into this great chorus of praise. Now, now, the Mass, the Mass, and I’ll talk about it much more detail as we go, but the Mass is the moment when we are most ourselves, because we’ve gathered in adoration, “ad ora”, mouth- to mouth worth-shipping, giving highest praise to God. That’s why there’s a cosmic element to every Mass. Read Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) on this. Over and over again he stressed the cosmic dimension of the Mass. That’s why if you go to the great gothic cathedrals, you(ll find they’re covered inside and out with symbols of nature, of planets, and animals, and the stars, right, right? As we give right praise to God we’re leading all the creation to great chorus of praise. That’s what’s happening at the Mass. That’s why at Mass we are most ourselves.

The point is , it’s precisely in heaven that we are when we gather for Mass.

why? Because our praise here below is meant to participate in an echo, the eternal praise of the saints and angels in heaven. May our voices be one with theirs we say later in the Mass, right? At the Holy, Holy. Well who are we talking about there? But the angels, see, gathered in addition, rightly ordered, may our praise here below, echo and participate in theirs. The Mass lifts us up to heaven. Again, I’ll say more about it as we go. That’s why it’s so important, and this Vatican II is so insistent upon this, that the Mass is not like a lecture, or performance, that we come to witness from a distance. It's this great prayer by which we are rightly ordered unto God. There’s your full, conscious, and active participation in it. How about one more general idea, the Mass is a great call, and response between Christ the head, and the members of his mystical body. Let me just say that again, because I’ll come back to this theme a lot. The Mass is a great call, and response between Christ the head, and the members of his mystical body.

First, a word about the God who speaks. It is fundamental to the Bible, this idea that our God is not a distant, deist force, but rather a God who speaks. Mind you, don’t think right away of deep voice coming from the clouds, that’s a symbol of what I’m talking about. What I mean is that God, the Creator of all things, is a God who communicates in all of nature The Bible couldn’t be clearer. Paul says, “In the visible things of the world we sense the invisible things of God.” The Psalmist says, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God.” The Bible knew all about that. I would say since the whole world was made through the Word, as St. John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.” And through that Word, God makes the whole world. God said, “ Let there be light” and there was light. It’s a poetic way of saying that all things come forth imbued (filled) with intelligibility. Mind you, any scientists here in the room and any scientists listening to me, this is very important. One of the conditions for the possibility of the physical sciences is the assumption that the created universe, the physical universe, is endowed, imbued with intelligibility. As you go out to meet it, you’ll meet some form of intelligible pattern. That’s because it’s been spoken into being, thought, if you want, into being. That’s why every act of knowledge in our language is recognition, a “re-cognition.” It’s a thinking again what’s already been thought into it. My point is, all of reality does speak of God.  Flip it around, God speaks through all things. I was out on the lovely beach here, not far from Santa Barbara, just the other day, walking along. I love it, I love the beach. Was God speaking to me? Absolutely. Absolutely, in the wind, and the waves, and the sand.

 Sure, of course. God speaks through all things. But, we claim, that speech becomes more pointed, clearer in the great history of the people of Israel. As God forms his people and sends the patriarchs and the prophets, the divine voice is becoming clearer, more focused, more intelligible. And then we hear in that climactic line from the New Testament, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Mind you, the same word by which the whole universe is made, the same word that inspired the prophets now becomes flesh, becomes this Jesus, so that now the word speaks with utter clarity. Here’s how the author of the letter to the Hebrews sums it up. I couldn’t say it any better. “In times past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the prophets. In this final age,” (we’re in that same age, by the way) in this final age, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he has made heir of all things and through whom he first created the universe.” That’s summing up everything I’ve just said. God’s speaking in the creative world. God’s speaking more pointedly through Israel. God’s speaking with utter clarity now through the incarnation of the word, and so it’s time to listen.

  You know, certainly in the course of my lifetime, over and over again, people say some version of, “ I don’t need to go to Mass to hear the word of God. I can go down to the beach. I can go out in the woods. I can go out in the mountains, and I can hear the voice of God.” Yeah, sure you can. I’m not denying that, but why would you accept this sort of muffled recording of someone’s voice when the person is standing right in front of you. You know what I’m saying? Wouldn’t you say, “No, I want to be with the person right there speaking to me, rather than listening to a muffled old recording of his voice.” Isn’t it just as good to be with God on the beach? No, it’s not. It’s not as clear, and intense, and personal a communication….

   The Mass is where we encounter Christ most fully. In the first major section of Mass, we listen and we respond. It’s so important. Again, the Mass is not a theatrical performance. It’s not a lecture, which I’m passively receiving. Whenever God speaks, I am prompted to speak back, to respond. It’s a dialogue that’s occurring. Christ calling out to his mystical body, the mystical body speaking back. Here’s a way to think about it too, everybody:

The Trinity is always at play when we talk about the divine speech. You say, “God speaks,” that means there’s a divine speaker. We call him the Father. It means there’s a word spoken. We call the Son, and there’s a divine interpreter of the word that’s operative in us when we listen. See, there’s no way I’d really understand the divine speech unless there was this interpreter operating in us. We call that interpreter the Holy Spirit. When we sit to listen to the word of God, the father speaks, the son has spoken, the spirit interprets the word. This dynamic of the Trinity is unfolding whenever we listen to God’s holy word.

Throughout the Bible, God makes covenants with his people, drawing them closer to each other and closer to his own heart (see chart below).

Saints throughout the ages have reflected on these covenants as God’s continued invitation for us to:

• Trust him more deeply

• Love him more fervently

• Embrace our rich inheritance as children of God

ADAMIC COVENANT SLIDE

             We'll draw Adam in all his glory - and focus on five roles he played:

• Sonship - how he's made in the image and likeness of God, so as we discussed before, this is the language of son-ship.  To designate him as a son, let's give him a shining face, a "filial shine."  His face shines with the glory of God his Father. 

• Kingship - Gen. 1:26 mentions Adam as king, having dominion over the world, and the language of dominion is the language of kingship - so let's draw him holding a scepter, and wearing a crown - he is universal king.

• Priesthood - Gen. 2:15 says he was put in the Garden to work and to guard the Garden, the next time this phrase is used in the Bible is in the Book of numbers, to describe the role of the priests; what the priests had to do in the sanctuary.  So the two words "work" and "guard" tell us that Adam had the role of priest in the sanctuary Eden, which was the first temple, as we already discussed. So we'll draw a priestly stole on Adam.

• Prophet - Adam was a prophet as mentioned in Gen. 2:19-20, he names the animals, on behalf of God, that is, he is acting as a prophet, speaking on God's behalf, so we'll give him a mouth and eyes showing that he is serenely proclaiming the Word of God. 

• Bridegroom - We'll draw a wedding ring on Adam to symbolize his role as bridegroom. He is the universal bridegroom - he is married to all of humanity, because all of humanity consists of only one person, Eve, at this point in salvation history.

So these are the privileges of the Covenant, and these are also our roles as well, as highlighted in the Catechism 901-908, especially the roles of priest, prophet and king of every Christian believer, by virtue of our baptism.

So what happened?

There was a fall, where Adam and Eve rejected God as Father, and denied or lost for themselves the privileges of being children of God. And the Fall that they committed, eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, and the shame and curse of this is mentioned in Gen. 3:1-24.

Video: TAKE AND EAT: THE BIBLE AND THE MASS