how nature became less cooperative - 16th week Tuesday 2

In our first reading today we see the forces of nature coming into play when Israel went out of the land of their slavery pursued by the Paraoh’s army – a pillar of cloud blocked the Egyptians as they race towards the Israelites, the strong east wind blew the seabed turning it into dry land, and the waters of the Red Sea stopped flowing and divided into two thus allowing a passage for Israel. Origen in his homily commented on these miraculous events saying: “See the goodness of God the Creator: if you submit to his will and follow his Law, he will see to it that created things cooperate with you.”

Nature cooperates if only we submit to God’s will and follow his law.  This observation harps back to that beautiful relationship and cooperation between man and nature in the garden of Eden before sin entered the world.  But when man disobeyed God, the ground was cursed and it produced thorns and thistles  and only through painful toil, by the sweat of his brow can man eat of its produce.  When we disobey God’s commands nature also becomes less cooperative. 

Pope Francis in his encyclical “laudato si” rightly observed that our environmental problems today have ethical and spiritual roots.  There is just so much greed, we have become so individualistic, thinking only of ourselves and our own good, we have acquired a throwaway culture and have become wasteful of our resources, we live without that consciousness that we are all interconnected – that the neglect of one has consequences for others.  We throw away the plastic bags that we use instead of recycling them, we drink a little mineral water from the bottle tapos indi maubos ihaboy lang; ang pagka-on nga gina-order naton anga-solobra kag ginahaboy lang naton sa bahog kag sa basurahan, suga nagasiliga electric fan naga-andar nga wala man may naga-usar, indi man kinahanglanon.

Even our own Filipino myths tell of those days when a grain of rice as big as a basketball would just roll over from the fields to the homes of people without so much effort from farmers.  They just roll from the fields and find the family they would feed.  But one day because of man’s greediness, because of man’s selfishness, the grains stopped – they became smaller and no longer roll the way they did before.  And now it is only by going through so much hardships can we produce rice for our table.  And even then we still waste a lot of these.  This may be a myth, it may not be a fact but it teaches the truth, the truth that our sins affect nature and make her less cooperative.  And because of this we suffer.