Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
The book of Genesis (1:26) records God’s gift of dominion over all the earth to us human beings. St. Ignatius Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises (23), adds that all the “things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him.” The entire world is God’s gift to us. How much more could we possibly ask for? What other gift could we demand in proof of God’s care for us?
Reflection on this world and its beauty is an essential part of Ignatian spirituality. To fail to appreciate the beauty of the things around us would be to neglect the goodness of the gift we have been given, at the risk of offending the giver. At the opposite extreme, someone might try to put this world or some part of this world up onto a lofty pedestal, as if it were a god. This is idolatry, a very grave sin, indeed.
The virtue is to be found in the mean, in the middle path: observing this world carefully, appreciating it, neither esteeming it too much nor too little, but using it to help us praise, reverence and serve God, our creator and Lord.