Listening to the voice of creation
October 17, 2023 - Tuesday, Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day pours out the word to day,
and night to night imparts knowledge.
Not a word nor a discourse
whose voice is not heard;
Through all the earth their voice resounds,
and to the ends of the world, their message.
Psalm 19 begins with declaring the greatness of God (see Ps 19:2-7), then, it moves into praising the Lord for the gift of the Torah - the teaching of the Lord (Ps 19:8-11), and ends with a petition for forgiveness and protection from wilful sins (Ps 19:12-15).
Today we reflect upon the first part of this psalm that helps us to see God’s revelation in creation: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:2). How do they do it? We find an answer in the well known quote from Saint Augustine:
“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a confession. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One who is not subject to change?” (Quoted in CCC, 32).
But, the problem is that the confession of creation about the Creator is done in a mysterious way. On the one hand, the psalmist says that their voice resounds through all the earth. On the other hand, we hear that their declaration is “not heard” because there is “not a word nor a discourse” (see Ps 19:4). So what kind of language is it? A mysterious language of the spheres?
Verse 5 with its proclamation that “through all the earth their voice resounds, and to the ends of the world, their message” has been associated with the proclamation of the Gospel. We find this psalm often as a part the liturgy of the Word on the feasts of the Apostles of Christ. “Their voice” refers to the voice of Christ’s apostles and the subsequent generations of Christ’s disciples who have made the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ known in the whole world.
Let me end this reflection with a beautiful quote from our catechism:
“When he listens to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man can arrive at certainty about the existence of God, the cause and the end of everything” (CCC, 46).