Reading:
Wisdom of Solomon 9:16
Write:
(see second paragraph)
Reflect:
My dad was a wise man. I remember he said one time that he did not think that human beings would be able to destroy the world. He said this at the height of the Cold War. I agreed with him then, and I still agree with that same idea.
I remember his comment now because of what we heard in our first reading: “scarcely can we guess the things on earth, and only with difficulty grasp what is at hand; but things in heaven, who can search them out?”
What I am about to say today, for some people, will be… nearly a heresy against the modern science referred to as climatology. There is such an hysteria over what is called global warming that this is becoming an obsession. I believe it is also a form of a new fake religion. I know there are some reports that make claims that 97% of scientists agree with the idea of global warming, and that it is caused by the activity of human beings.
But there is also compelling research that debunks this idea. Even going so far as to show that the researchers claiming the 97% have used faulty methods to come to this high sounding percentage.
Now, please understand. I am not saying that we should be cavalier in regards to the environment. Marine biologists have shown the harmful effects of plastic straws. However, to be as alarmist as some people are regarding the total picture seems to me to be terribly unwarranted.
Again, look at the quote from our first reading: “scarcely can we guess the things on earth, and only with difficulty grasp what is at hand…” Scientific theories are just that. They are theories.
There are established facts in science, but I do not think the hysteria over climate change is anything more than a theory, and probably a useless theory as well.
Why am I going into all of this? It is because of the first reading that we have today. There is far too much made in people’s minds about the supposed correctness of anything that sounds like science. But… did you know that modern science grew because of Christianity?
Prior to Christianity, there were superstitions and beliefs in nature gods that controlled everything from the path of the sun to the snow that falls in the winter. But when Christianity rose to the point of dispelling those false gods, people began to ask the questions about why we have the order in the world that we do. And modern science began.
The problem is, some people have begun to make science into a false religion. This seems especially true with the hysteria surrounding global warming. And, at the risk of sounding critical of Pope Francis, he seems to be playing into these people’s hands.
Is he right and sounding a warning about the condition of the world, and the environment? Yes. But there are people who are going way too far, and are using the Pope’s statements to back their false religion.
They are talking about “mother Earth” – as though she were a goddess, as though she were alive and had some form of sentience. This is science gone too far. In fact, it is a form of a reversal of science, and an attempt to return to some sort of a nature religion, even though they are not calling it a religion openly.
Now, some modern scientists want to dismiss science’s own parent, which is Christianity. They want to dismiss Christianity as an irrelevancy. They want to claim that “all answers to everything can be found in science.” This is far, far from the reality that our first reading gives us.
Our faith, tells us that God is far greater than anything that we can come to understand of the world around us. As I have said to children in the school, if God wanted to, he could have a unicorn appear right in front of us. Now, we have the concept of a unicorn, which means our imagination works. But to our knowledge God has never made a unicorn. He has never made an apple grow on a peach tree. Could he do that? Who are we to say to God “you can’t do that!”
Apply:
We struggle to understand some of the most basic things about God. But it is only by his choice to reveal Himself, through the Scriptures, and more importantly through Jesus, that we are able to have an understanding of the majesty of God. Yet he has enabled us to understand many of the mysteries of his creation.
We should pursue an ever deeper understanding of what we can understand so that we can understand the magnificence of the God we cannot understand. – I don’t want to repeat that sentence. Do you understand?
The full last verse of our reading today has an important addition that was not in the reading, it reads: “thus were the paths of those on earth made straight, and people learned what pleases you, and were saved by Wisdom.”
Pope St. John Paul made a point of saying that there is nothing in science or reason that is incompatible with our faith. In fact, everything that is true springs from the source of truth, God Himself. One of my dreams is that someday soon scientists will wake up to the truth of the mystery of God and the fact that he has revealed Himself to us in ways that we CAN understand and that will lead us closer to Him.
Left to ourselves, we cannot gain wisdom, that is the wisdom of God, because our thought processes are too limited to understand the majesty of God. We also get tied up in the things of this world. Sometimes those things are necessary. But sometimes they are a distraction from pursuing the holiness and the wisdom of God.
Pray/Praise:
Jesus, you chose to reveal God to us by your life, death, and resurrection. You have created us with intellects that can understand you and who you are as the God-man. We give you thanks for this marvelous gift.
Help us to understand: to understand the mysteries of your Godhead; to understand the mysteries of the world around us; to understand the mysteries of ourselves and the people around us.
Most of all, Lord, help us to understand how to share your love to those who are so confused that they do not understand you as God. Send your Wisdom to surround us, to fill us, to inebriate us with the power of your Spirit that we may be your joy filled witnesses and tear down the strongholds of ignorance and false religions, including an attitude toward science that does not understand the gift you have given. Amen.