Hallelujah
May 17, 2023 - Wednesday, Sixth Week of Easter
Psalm 148:1-2, 11-12, 13, 14
Psalm 148 is a call to praise that has a cosmic character. Praise is not confined to people alone. Not just the kings and all the peoples of the earth are called to praise but also the heavens, God’s angels, the sun and the moon, and the stars (see Ps 148:2-3). As we move to the earth, the fish of the seas and oceans, all the animals and birds, meteorological phenomena such as hail, snow, and wind, and also the mountains and the trees are included in the call to worship (see Ps 148:7-10). All creation participates in the worship of God who created it.
The Bible begins with the proclamation that God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1) and we begin our Creed by professing our faith in “one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”. The act of creation is the first universal testimony of God’s love and the beginning of the history of salvation that culminates in the new creation in Christ: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). But the entire universe is going to be included this new creation: “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).
The ancients were talking about the symphony of the spheres referring to the harmonious movement of the planets. Today, the scientists speak about the fine-tuning of the universe. An Anglican priest and professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge, John Polkinghorne said: “Unless the fundamental physical laws were more or less precisely what they actually are, the universe would have had a very boring and sterile history”. And another physicist, Freeman Dyson beautifully said that the universe seemed to know we were coming. This symphony of the spheres, this fine-tuning of the universe is God’s miracle of creation.
Our Catechism teaches that “there is a solidarity among all creatures arising from the fact that all have the same Creator and are all ordered to his glory” (CCC, 344). One among the saints of the Church who particularly grasped this truth was Saint Francis. In his Canticle of Creatures, he names the sun our brother, water our sister, and the earth our mother. He wished that all God’s creatures would praise the Lord.
In our contemporary world that elevated work and busyness to a statue of an idol, the statement that we have been created for praising God and that nothing should take precedence over it sounds like heresy. And yet, that is what we read in our Catechism: “Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God” (CCC, 347).
If the sabbath ended the first creation, then the eighth day, the day of Easter has begun the new creation that is going to culminate in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). “The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation in Christ, the splendour of which surpasses that of the first creation” (CCC, 349). And so we sing the Easter song, “Hallelujah”, “Praise the Lord”, proclaiming the beginning of the new creation in Christ.