This blog uses the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church to find wisdom for each day’s life.

 Reading 1, Wis 13:1-9

1 Yes, naturally stupid are all who are unaware of God, and who, from good things seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is, or, by studying the works, have not recognised the Artificer.

2 Fire, however, or wind, or the swift air, the sphere of the stars, impetuous water, heaven’s lamps, are what they have held to be the gods who govern the world.

3 If, charmed by their beauty, they have taken these for gods, let them know how much the Master of these excels them, since he was the very source of beauty that created them.

4 And if they have been impressed by their power and energy, let them deduce from these how much mightier is he that has formed them,

5 since through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author.

6 Small blame, however, attaches to them, for perhaps they go astray only in their search for God and their eagerness to find him;

7 familiar with his works, they investigate them and fall victim to appearances, seeing so much beauty.

8 But even so, they have no excuse:

9 if they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they been so slow to find its Master?

 This is pungently expressed but also, I think, unfair. The concept of a sole creator God is not such an obvious inference from experience of the beauty and grandeur of the universe. It is, certainly, a Jewish concept, from maybe as early as the 8^th century BCE, and there are signs of it in the creation myths of many other parts of the world, but there are just as many religions without any creator God. It is also easier to hold this faith if one hasn’t read Darwin. His picture of a ruthless process, whereby most of the species which have inhabited the earth have become extinct, is more difficult to attribute to the wisdom of a kindly creator. I have come to accept the process of evolution as the consequence of the profound freedom extended by God even to the particles of the atom. The creaturely suffering –think of the quantity of that daily suffering on this one planet-is a decisive argument against a loving creator unless one can extend the promise that all tears will be wiped away to all creatures who ever suffered, even if they don’t have eyes. St Paul talks of the present state of the cosmos as the labour pains of a new creation. That is how I experience its savage beauty day by day; but I can understand why Richard Dawkins finds this faith absurd.

Millions of extinct creatures are found in these cliffs

Gospel, Lk 17:26-37

26 ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of man.

27 People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the Flood came and destroyed them all.

28 It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,

29 but the day Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all.

30 It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of man to be revealed.

31 ‘When that Day comes, no one on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back.

32 Remember Lot’s wife.

33 Anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe.

34 I tell you, on that night, when two are in one bed, one will be taken, the other left;

35 when two women are grinding corn together, one will be taken, the other left.’

37 The disciples spoke up and asked, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said, ‘Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather.’

 For human beings as well as for other species there is a crisis of fitness for survival. In the case of human persons the principle is that those who have become reckless in giving away their lives will survive and those who have become carefully selfish will die. It is not obvious in this life which is which, maybe my partner is one and I am the other. Again Jesus rejects any attempt to predict the “the day”: it will be business as usual until suddenly it arrives. The revelation of the Son of Man is probably the same as Paul’s “Glorious liberty of the Children of God” i.e. the fulfilment of the Creator’s love for the universe. The pattern of the life of Christ, cross and resurrection, is the pattern of personal and cosmic fulfilment. I trust I’m learning to be reckless.