From Creation to the Creator

Wis 13:1-9; Psalm: 18; Lk 17:26-37

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, the Word of God today presents us with a profound spiritual journey—a call to move from admiring the beauty of creation to knowing the heart of the Creator, and in that knowledge, to live with the urgent readiness that our ultimate destiny demands.

The author of the Book of Wisdom observes the natural human inclination toward God with a touch of divine pity. He speaks of those who, from “the good things that are seen,” have failed to know Him who is. They are captivated by the beauty of “fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminaries of heaven.” These are not evil things; they are God’s magnificent works. The tragedy is not in the appreciation, but in the stopping point. They mistake the masterpiece for the Master. “Let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these,” the text pleads, “for the original source of beauty fashioned them.” This is the first step of faith: to let creation be a window to the Creator, not a curtain that blocks our view.

This failure to see beyond the visible has eternal consequences, which the Gospel makes startlingly clear. Jesus speaks of the days of the Son of Man, comparing them to the times of Noah and Lot. In both eras, life proceeded with utter normalcy: “they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.” There is no inherent sin in these activities. The sin was in their complete absorption in the temporal world, their contentment with the created order alone. They were so immersed in the “what is seen” that they were utterly unprepared for the sudden, disruptive intervention of God. The warning is stark: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” Clinging to the visible world and its securities means losing the invisible, eternal one.

The world is not evil, but it is transient. It is meant to lead us to God, not to detain us. As Saint Paul tells us, “For what can be known about God is evident… ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rom 1:19-20). The problem arises when we, like the people in Noah’s day, become so engrossed in the “buying and selling” that we forget the one who gives us the capacity to buy and sell.

This is where we find both comfort and a sobering challenge. The comfort is that God is not hiding. He has stamped His beauty and power on all of creation. The challenge is to live with a heart detached and ready. As Saint John of the Cross wrote, “To come to the pleasure you have not, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.”

How do we apply this? We must practice seeing God in the everyday—in the warmth of the sun, the love of a friend, the beauty of a melody—and let those moments turn our hearts to prayerful gratitude. Simultaneously, we must hold our plans and possessions lightly, remembering that our true life is “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).

Let us ask for the grace to be like the wise men, who saw a star and followed it to the King. May we journey through the beautiful things of this world without settling for them, always ready to leave everything behind at a moment’s notice to answer the call of our Creator, in whom alone we find our eternal home. Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.