{"id":18883,"date":"2020-05-20T09:02:58","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T13:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18883"},"modified":"2020-05-20T09:02:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T13:02:58","slug":"franciscan-ecological-wisdom-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18883","title":{"rendered":"Franciscan Ecological Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"250\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-18-at-8.36.38-AM-500x250.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18884\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-18-at-8.36.38-AM-500x250.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-18-at-8.36.38-AM-300x150.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-18-at-8.36.38-AM-768x385.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Screen-Shot-2020-05-18-at-8.36.38-AM.png 1182w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GI3XyRwq0qM\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>God is Being Itself<\/strong><br>Wednesday, \u202fMay 20, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266\u20131308), whom I studied for four years in seminary, wrote that \u201cGod first wills Christ as his supreme work.\u201d [1] In other words, God\u2019s \u201cfirst idea\u201d and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used in the Bible for this idea was\u00a0<em>Logos<\/em>, which was taken from Greek philosophy, and which I would translate as the \u201cBlueprint\u201d for reality.\u00a0<em><strong>The whole of creation\u2014<\/strong><\/em><strong>not just Jesus\u2014is the partner in the divine dance.<\/strong> Everything is the \u201cchild of God\u201d\u2014no exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All created beings must, in some way, carry the divine DNA of their Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without a sense of the inherent sacredness of the world\u2014in every tiny bit of life and death\u2014we struggle to see God in our own reality, let alone to respect reality, protect it, or love it. The consequences of this ignorance are all around us, seen in the way we have exploited and damaged our fellow human beings, the dear animals, the web of growing things, the land, the waters, and the very air. It took until the twenty-first century for a pope to clearly say this, in Pope Francis\u2019 prophetic document&nbsp;<em>Laudato Si\u2032<\/em>. May it not be too late and may the unnecessary gap between practical seeing (science) and holistic seeing (religion) be fully overcome. They still need each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Franciscan mysticism has an&nbsp;<em>incarnational worldview,&nbsp;<\/em>which<em>&nbsp;<\/em>is the profound recognition of the presence of the divine in literally \u201cevery thing\u201d and \u201cevery one.\u201d It is the key to mental and spiritual health, as well as to a kind of basic contentment and happiness. An incarnational worldview is the only way we can reconcile our inner worlds with the outer one, unity with diversity, physical with spiritual, individual with corporate, and divine with human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we see in Franciscan mystics, again and again, is a joyful and unitive consciousness that intuits and experiences what Duns Scotus called \u201cthe univocity of being.\u201d By this, Duns Scotus meant that we can speak with\u00a0<em>one consistent and true voice\u00a0<\/em>about a rock, a tree, an animal, a human, an angel, and God! They all participate in the one same state of Being to varying degrees, and\u00a0<em>Deus est Ens<\/em>, he often wrote: \u201cGod is Being itself.\u201d This eliminates any clear distinction between the sacred and the profane, because Christ existed in matter from all eternity (Colossians 1:15\u201320; Ephesians 1:3\u201311), ever since <strong>God decided to materialize and reveal who God is through creation<\/strong>. It is summarized on our Franciscan coat of arms by the Latin phrase\u00a0<em>Deus Meus et Omnia<\/em>: \u201cMy God and All Things!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Franciscan Ecological Wisdom<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>God is Being Itself<\/strong><br>Wednesday, \u202fMay 20, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266\u20131308), whom I studied for four years in seminary, wrote that \u201cGod first wills Christ as his supreme work.\u201d [1] In other words, God\u2019s \u201cfirst idea\u201d and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used in the Bible for this idea was&nbsp;<em>Logos<\/em>, which was taken from Greek philosophy, and which I would translate as the \u201cBlueprint\u201d for reality.&nbsp;<em>The whole of creation\u2014<\/em>not just Jesus\u2014is the partner in the divine dance. Everything is the \u201cchild of God\u201d\u2014no exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All created beings must, in some way, carry the divine DNA of their Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without a sense of the inherent sacredness of the world\u2014in every tiny bit of life and death\u2014we struggle to see God in our own reality, let alone to respect reality, protect it, or love it. The consequences of this ignorance are all around us, seen in the way we have exploited and damaged our fellow human beings, the dear animals, the web of growing things, the land, the waters, and the very air. It took until the twenty-first century for a pope to clearly say this, in Pope Francis\u2019 prophetic document&nbsp;<em>Laudato Si\u2032<\/em>. May it not be too late and may the unnecessary gap between practical seeing (science) and holistic seeing (religion) be fully overcome. They still need each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Franciscan mysticism has an&nbsp;<em>incarnational worldview,&nbsp;<\/em>which<em>&nbsp;<\/em>is the profound recognition of the presence of the divine in literally \u201cevery thing\u201d and \u201cevery one.\u201d It is the key to mental and spiritual health, as well as to a kind of basic contentment and happiness. An incarnational worldview is the only way we can reconcile our inner worlds with the outer one, unity with diversity, physical with spiritual, individual with corporate, and divine with human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we see in Franciscan mystics, again and again, is a joyful and unitive consciousness that intuits and experiences what Duns Scotus called \u201cthe univocity of being.\u201d By this, Duns Scotus meant that we can speak with&nbsp;<em>one consistent and true voice&nbsp;<\/em>about a rock, a tree, an animal, a human, an angel, and God! They all participate in the one same state of Being to varying degrees, and&nbsp;<em>Deus est Ens<\/em>, he often wrote: \u201cGod is Being itself.\u201d This eliminates any clear distinction between the sacred and the profane, because Christ existed in matter from all eternity (Colossians 1:15\u201320; Ephesians 1:3\u201311), ever since God decided to materialize and reveal who God is through creation. It is summarized on our Franciscan coat of arms by the Latin phrase&nbsp;<em>Deus Meus et Omnia<\/em>: \u201cMy God and All Things!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God is Being ItselfWednesday, \u202fMay 20, 2020 The Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266\u20131308), whom I studied for four years in seminary, wrote that \u201cGod first wills Christ as his supreme work.\u201d [1] In other words, God\u2019s \u201cfirst idea\u201d and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18883"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18885,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18883\/revisions\/18885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}