Why are the people of Israel, my own people, so deaf to the gospel, Paul asks in his Letter to the Romans read this week? ( Romans 11) It’s a question we might ask as we wonder about the present deafness of the western world, our own people, to the gospel today. Why do so many dismiss the Christian faith as meaningless? Why are so many leaving the Church?

”Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Or who has given him anything that he may be repaid?For from him and through him and for him are all things.To God be glory forever. Amen.”

Paul doesn’t leave the question at that, however, but he sees Israel’s deafness preparing for the coming of the Gentiles into the church. As Paul sees it, Israel’s resistance to the gospel allowed the Gentiles to accept the Chrisian message. They wouldn’t enter a church that was too Jewish in its nature, a Jewish Christian church.

Is our deafness today preparing for the next stage of God’s plan of salvation, when other nations, from Africa and Asia, will be welcomed into the Christian church that no longer appears clothed in the colonialism of the western world?

The rest of Paul’s reflection also deserves to be heard. Just as Paul warns Gentile Christians against arrogantly abandoning the Jews, who are God’s work, so too God’s grace is still at work in our western church, in a plan that is inscrutable and unsearchable. The church we knew, remains holy in God’s eyes. We need to respect its traditions and its holiness.

We are not God’s advisors, but servants and discoverers of his plan.

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul writes of weakness. We live in a world of cosmic sin. Paul sees that weakness in humanity and in himself.

Yet, God gives us in Christ a grace that cannot be measured:

 “ We have received a spirit of adoption through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:15-17)

As God’s children we have the gift to speak to our Father in prayer, even in our weakness: 

“The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
because he intercedes for the holy ones 
according to God’s will.” (Romans 8:26-27)

God’s gift is never withdrawn, and so we often end our prayers:

 “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

In a recent interview, Pope Leo XIV wondered whether celebrating the Vatican II liturgy “ in a proper way” might help alleviate conflict in our church between advocates of the Traditional Mass and the Mass of Vatican II. 

What might “in a proper way” mean? 

Pope Leo will surely engage that subject at some future date, but he’s not likely to diverge from his predecessors, all of whom supported the liturgical changes that came  from Vatican II. He will certainly look at an important apostolic letter his predecessor Pope Francis wrote in June 29, 2022,  “Desiderio desideravi”, on the liturgical formation of the People of God.

Francis called the liturgical books promulgated by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.” (Motu Proprio, Traditionis custodes, art 1) In the light of that statement, Pope Leo would hardly change the status of the liturgy of Vatican II.

In Desiderio desideravi, Francis, quoting Pope Paul VI, describes the liturgy as the “‘first source of divine communion in which God shares his own life with us. It is also the first school of the spiritual life. The liturgy is the first gift we must make to the Christian people united to us by faith and the fervour of their prayers. It is also a primary invitation to the human race, so that all may now lift their mute voices in blessed and genuine prayer.’”

Pope Francis in Desiderio desideravi called for a liturgical formation beyond academic formation, a formation leading, not just to understanding, but above all to wonder. 

The modern challenge to the prayer of the church, Francis said, was that people today, not in all cultures to the same degree, “have lost the capacity to engage with symbolic action, which is essential to the liturgical action.” (Dd 27) He quotes from the German theologian Romano Guardini, an important source on the liturgy: “The first task of the work of liturgical formation: we must become once again capable of symbols.”

To engage in the liturgy we must follow the way of the Incarnation, Francis wrote. The sacramental way.“The Liturgy is done with things that are the exact opposite of spiritual abstractions: bread, wine, oil, water, fragrances, fire, ashes, rock, fabrics, colors, body, words, sounds, silences, gestures, space, movement, action, order, time, light.” (Dd 42)

All of creation manifests the love of God. All of creation serves the manifestation of the Word. Water, oil, bread and wine are essential to the prayer of the church. “The task is not easy because modern man has become illiterate, no longer able to read symbols; it is almost as if their existence is not even suspected.” (Dd 44)

“Above all we must reacquire confidence in creation.” (Dd 46) Pope Francis’ call for confidence in creation links the challenge of liturgical prayer with another great challenge of our time: the care of creation. In his encyclical Laudato si’ Pope Francis saw the need to view creation with fresh eyes. A greater appreciation of creation can lead to a greater appreciation of the church’s liturgy. Conversely, a greater involvement in the church’s liturgy “in a proper way” can help restore the way we see creation.

Liturgical spirituality and creation spirituality converge.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                can increase our appreciation of creation.

“Creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.” It “groans in labor pains” until that day comes, when there will be a “new heaven and a new earth.” Creation will be renewed, not destroyed. It’s linked to our destiny, St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans. (Romans 8: 18-24)

Paul’s message is found in the Apostles’ Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” Creation shares in the glory of a world to come.

Deer approach the Cross in the great mural in the church of St. John Lateran in Rome.(above) They’re not just representing our thirst for God. “Like the deer that longs for running streams, so my soul thirsts for you, my God.” (Psalm 4) The Spirit calls living creatures and inanimate creation to share in the promise made to us. Creation “groans” and shares in “the sufferings of the present time”, as it waits for the promise to be fulfilled.

The Jewish scriptures, especially the psalms, recognize God’s promise to creation, often inviting the earth to sing with us:

“Cry out with joy, all the earth. 

Serve the Lord with gladness. 

Come before him singing for joy.”  (Psalm 100)

We’re reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans– his most important letter– for almost four weeks at Mass. Paul writes to a Jewish-Christian community in Rome to establish his credentials as an apostle of Christ and to enlist their help for a journey he wants to make to Spain. It’s a community of Jewish and Roman converts trying to reconcile Jewish law and tradition with faith in Christ, so the letter takes on that question at length. 

It can be hard to follow. We need to remember the letter is based on Paul’s basic teaching, the common creed of the church. Today’s reading (Romans 8: 12-17), for example, is a beautiful reflection on the mission of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit leads us to call God, the creator of heaven and earth, “Abba, Father!” We are God’s adopted children, “joint heirs with Christ” called to share in his glory, “if only we suffer with him.” 

Tomorrow’s reading continues this teaching as it applies to creation. “Creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.” It “groans in labor pains” until that day comes when there will be a “new heaven and a new earth.” Just as we await the fruit of our adoption, creation waits to share in our adoption in “the redemption of our bodies.” 

All creation groans in labor pains, shares a common suffering,  waits for the Spirit to fulfill his promise. Creation has a share in the resurrection of Christ. 

This is teaching about creation you won’t get from science. We have it from faith. It’s an important teaching for us today. It’s important, too, to recognize it’s is not just Paul’s personal teaching. He’s preaching from the basic teaching of the church.

Paul speaks of creation as he begins his Letter to the Romans.  “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.” Creation reveals God to us, yet human beings turn from the God of creation, creating gods of their own.

Paul’s words are a timely commentary on climate change today as we continue to put national and personal interests, our oil fields and coal mines and life-styles above the well being of our earth. His teaching on creation is a basic teaching that needs to be heard.