[Sundaycommunity] Beauty and Integral Ecology in Laudato Si(full version)

[Arthur Blomme]

 From time to time I do a reflection for my Eucharistic community,  This 
is the full version of my reflection for this Sunday.

Art



  Beauty and Integral Ecology in Laudato Si

By Arthur Blomme

Pope Francis in Laudato Si lays out a spiritual path that he calls 
Integral Ecology.By integral, Francis means integrating all aspects of 
being.

Proponents of integral theory speak of this all-encompassing nature 
using the initials AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels).These quadrants form 
one of the basic insights of Integral theory. As it was explained to me 
the quadrants are four realities that make up the cosmos.

Three of the quadrants have their origin in Plato.He spoke about the big 
three forms. They were beauty, truth and goodness.

Thomas Aquinas later referred to these forms as transcendentals.They are 
three realms where humanity transcends their animal nature. Much can be 
gained by spirituality that integrates truth, beauty and goodness.

Given this background I would like to focus on one of these 
transcendentals, beauty.Beauty corresponds to the reality of our 
subjective experience just as truth corresponds to the reality of our 
Objective experience.

Beauty is an important element of Laudato Si and integral ecology.Beauty 
inspires a higher state of consciousness of awe and wonder, the child 
like state that maximizes personal growth.

There are 29 references to beauty in Laudato si.I have included several 
below for your contemplation. I hope that pope Francis’s words will 
inspire in you awe and wonder for the beauty of creation.

        /11. ... . If we approach nature and the environment without
        this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the
        language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the
        world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless
        exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs./

        /12. What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites
        us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us
        and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness.
        “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to
        know by analogy their maker” ( Wis 13:5); indeed, “his eternal
        power and divinity have been made known through his works since
        the creation of the world” ( Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis
        asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched,
        so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who
        saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such
        beauty. 21 Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a
        joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise./

        ///34. ... But a sober look at our world shows that the degree
        of human intervention, often in the service of business
        interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less
        rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as
        technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound
        limitlessly. We seem to think that we can substitute an
        irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something which we
        have created ourselves./

        /53. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so
        that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and
        correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness./

        /97. The Lord was able to invite others to be attentive to the
        beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in
        constant touch with nature, lending it an attention full of
        fondness and wonder. As he made his way throughout the land, he
        often stopped to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father, and
        invited his disciples to perceive a divine message in things:
        “Lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for
        harvest” (Jn 4:35). “The kingdom of God is like a grain of
        mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the
        smallest of all seeds, but once it has grown, it is the greatest
        of plants” (Mt 13:31–32)./

        /112. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the
        freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at
        the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier,
        more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the
        dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes,
        for example, ... when the desire to create and contemplate
        beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of
        salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who behold it. An
        authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell
        in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed,
        like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. ////…/

        /215. In this regard, “the relationship between a good aesthetic
        education and the maintenance of a healthy environment cannot be
        overlooked.” By learning to see and appreciate beauty, we learn
        to reject self-interested pragmatism. If someone has not learned
        to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be
        surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used
        and abused without scruple. If we want to bring about deep
        change, we need to realize that certain mindsets really do
        influence our behaviour. Our efforts at education will be
        inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way
        of thinking about human beings, life, society and our
        relationship with nature/

        /235. God does not mean fleeing from this world or turning our
        back on nature. This is especially clear in the spirituality of
        the Christian East. “Beauty, which in the East is one of the
        best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of
        humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of a
        church, in the sounds, in the colours, in the lights, in the
        scents.”/

        /
        /

        /Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love , teach us to
        contemplate you in the beauty of the universe , for all things
        speak of you . Awaken our praise and thankfulness for every
        being that you have made . Give us the grace to feel profoundly
        joined to everything that is .(A CHRISTIAN PRAYER IN UNION WITH
        CREATION)

        /
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.integralshift.ca/pipermail/sundaycommunity-integralshift.ca/attachments/20230922/3cae3f7c/attachment.htm>