Mark Anthony Demeterio Muya FSP Reflection Paper #3

Narration

Everyday in the seminary, we have a thirty-minute meditation time before the start of the

mass. Usually, I sit on a pew looking around inside the chapel while hearing the chirping of birds

or the burbling exhaust of motorcycles. There were times that I did walk around the seminary

grounds and look at the trees and small plants with their flowers, flying animals and ants. The

seminary is surrounded by green fields. At times, I look at the sun rise shining forth light on the

mountains and cities. I breathe in and breathe out while thanking God for the fresh air I am

receiving. All these, I gaze upon the wonders of the nature around me. If one like me would be

in silence in awe, one would wonder how life began and how these have been sustained until

today.

When looking around, we can see many things that are moving or changing. As a

common saying would suggest, “Nothing is constant in the world, but change.” Plants are

growing, animals are moving, people are walking. What astonished me most is the growth of the

trees and plants which I think symbolizes all creation! Trying to see the process of growth of a

plant or a tree: it may begin with a seed with its full potential to become a tree, then later birds

can find food and home on it. I have compared my life like a plant who needs the care and

nurturing of the Creator towards the fulfillment and completion of my life. In the same way, I

compared the whole creation, the whole universe, to a growing plant that the Creator purposely

created everything towards its completion and abundance.

The word that encompasses my whole contemplation of the creation is “growth.”

Everything is in the process of growth wherein change can be observed, in hope that all these

changes will lead to the fulfillment of all creation according to the design of God. I as one among

all creatures is invited by God to participate in the completion of God’s work. Bearing the image

and likeness of God, with all freedom and will, humans are invited by God to participate in the

work of creation wherein life and love does manifest.

Mark Anthony Demeterio Muya FSP Reflection Paper #3

Analysis

In our modules, we stated that through the contemplation of the creation, we open up a

space in our hearts where God’s presence may be felt. Perhaps, one may feel God’s

omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence working all around creation.

First, being at awe in all creation, questioning how things begin, by faith we know that

there must be something or someone out there who must be the beginning of all these things.

And, we do believe, only God can create the whole universe. We can say that God must be

omnipotent, for nothing can create such a marvelous universe without all the strength it needs.

Secondly, when one looks at how these creations are in place in the environment, we

can find an order. Trees on lands, bees on flowers, fishes in water, birds on air, animals on

lands, roots and trunk then branches and leaves, day and night with the sun and the moon and

the stars. All such things are wonderfully and orderly placed. These must help us to realize,

there must be a God who intelligently designed all these things: a God who is omniscient.

Thirdly, if all things were created and continuously created by God, all things manifested

must be coming from him. In every creature, one can find an imprint coming from the Creator.

Therefore, in all things with God’s imprint on his artworks, we can find God’s presence

anywhere and in anything being created. God must be omnipresent.

Meaning

For me, what matters most is to see the growth of life and the presence of God in all

creation. As I can see how the fullness of life of a certain plant or an animal, I felt that growing

old myself, God must be working one me towards my own maturity. At the same time, since we

are assured that we came from God’s hands, we must see on each and every human the

imprint of the divine. And that in all things God created, we can begin to find God.
Mark Anthony Demeterio Muya FSP Reflection Paper #3

I can recall that Saint Augustine would say, “If you understand God, what you

understand isn't God.” Saint Anselm of Canterbury also said, God is “a being than which none

greater can be imagined.” In our modules, I found a video of Eckhart Tolle citing Buddha that

when Buddha was asked about God and who is God, Buddha responded with silence. For Tolle,

God can never be named. For the moment we named God, we only placed him as one being

thinkable and comprehensible in the mind, and yet God is greater than what we can think of.

Jews, however, do also revere God as someone unspeakable, that even writing or speaking the

Tetragrammaton is forbidden. Jews would replace YHWH with Lord in respect to the

unspeakable God. Finding all these things, God is inviting me to see him through nature, and

yet I shall also consider that he is beyond all creation.

Enactment

I am amazed that God is in nature and at the same time beyond what he has created. In

the same manner, I can praise God beginning with nature through the things I can perceive. But

I should remember that God is beyond all these, and so with faith beyond reason, I must praise

God.

As God can be seen in the growing creation towards perfection, I know to myself that

God is working in me and through me. With this, I place all my hope that God will be taking care

of me all the days of my life. And therefore, I shall not live in despair but with great trust in the

Lord.

God is beyond all things and transcends in all things. As I grow in God’s grace, may I

learn from God’s transcending love beginning from his creation. In this, I should love God

through my neighbor, both humans and all other creatures, and then I shall reflect my love to

God on them. Out of love, God created me. And now I am invited to bring life, growth and love

towards all creatures that God also loves. This is my way of participation in the creation.