Rediscovering God's gift in contemplation
Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni
A thought, this one from today's word of mouth, which deeply reflects the Christian vision of integral ecology, often inspired by Saint Francis
Interestingly, in Christian thought, we use the word "creation" rather than the word "nature," which carries a deeper depth and a true spiritual experience. Indeed, if nature is understood as a system to be known, respected, and managed, the term "creation" speaks to us of a gift from God and therefore of a true plan of love where every creature has its own specific place, value, and dignity.
This is why our "looking at nature" is not just a matter of stopping at its exterior, but of recognizing ourselves as part of it, experiencing both wonder and gratitude for the beauty of all creation.
A nature that thus becomes “transparency” of the divine and allows us to be in constant contact with the presence of God the Creator. Furthermore, looking at creation in this way entails the responsibility to protect it and not exploit it, striving to transform our relationship with it from mere spectators to people filled with gratitude.
Yes! If we lack contemplation, it's very easy to fall into a proud and destructive anthropocentrism that makes us humans the masters of nature, leading us to exploit it to the point of suffocation. And this is our sin: wanting to put ourselves in God's place, thus ruining the harmony of creation and God's plan for history.
It is essential recover our “contemplative dimension” looking at nature and therefore all of creation not to profit from it but as a gift, as Pope Francis rightly emphasized: “To contemplate is to go beyond the usefulness of something that must never be exploited precisely because it is always free.”
And as a good Jesuit, Pope Francis himself underlines the words that Saint Ignatius of Loyola places at the end of his spiritual exercises, “inviting us to contemplation to reach love”. That is, to contemplate ourselves too, how God looks at his creatures and rejoices with them, because he discovers his presence in them and with freedom and grace loves and cares for them.
This is why there is a true explosion of a new awareness of creation in these times of ours, full of contradictions, but also of a new incentive and help to immerse ourselves in this contemplation and this praise of nature, singing in chorus not only with St. Francis of Assisi but with all the Francises throughout history: “Praised be You, O my Lord.”
Pig iron
- “Word of Mouth” – Don Nino Carta's Facebook Profile (April 26, 2026)
Image
- Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni
A thought, this one from today's word of mouth, which deeply reflects the Christian vision of integral ecology, often inspired by Saint Francis
Interestingly, in Christian thought, we use the word "creation" rather than the word "nature," which carries a deeper depth and a true spiritual experience. Indeed, if nature is understood as a system to be known, respected, and managed, the term "creation" speaks to us of a gift from God and therefore of a true plan of love where every creature has its own specific place, value, and dignity.
This is why our "looking at nature" is not just a matter of stopping at its exterior, but of recognizing ourselves as part of it, experiencing both wonder and gratitude for the beauty of all creation.
A nature that thus becomes “transparency” of the divine and allows us to be in constant contact with the presence of God the Creator. Furthermore, looking at creation in this way entails the responsibility to protect it and not exploit it, striving to transform our relationship with it from mere spectators to people filled with gratitude.
Yes! If we lack contemplation, it's very easy to fall into a proud and destructive anthropocentrism that makes us humans the masters of nature, leading us to exploit it to the point of suffocation. And this is our sin: wanting to put ourselves in God's place, thus ruining the harmony of creation and God's plan for history.
It is essential recover our “contemplative dimension” looking at nature and therefore all of creation not to profit from it but as a gift, as Pope Francis rightly emphasized: “To contemplate is to go beyond the usefulness of something that must never be exploited precisely because it is always free.”
And as a good Jesuit, Pope Francis himself underlines the words that Saint Ignatius of Loyola places at the end of his spiritual exercises, “inviting us to contemplation to reach love”. That is, to contemplate ourselves too, how God looks at his creatures and rejoices with them, because he discovers his presence in them and with freedom and grace loves and cares for them.
This is why there is a true explosion of a new awareness of creation in these times of ours, full of contradictions, but also of a new incentive and help to immerse ourselves in this contemplation and this praise of nature, singing in chorus not only with St. Francis of Assisi but with all the Francises throughout history: “Praised be You, O my Lord.”
Pig iron
- “Word of Mouth” – Don Nino Carta's Facebook Profile (April 26, 2026)
Image
- Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni
Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni
