2 Creation

In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) wrote, “The whole universe in its wholeness more perfectly shares in and represents the divine goodness than any one creature by itself” (47:1). Now what we humans did was quite selfish and self-centered. The human ego took over and we thought our species was the only one God really cared about, and we extracted the soul from everything else! We ended up living in a cold and dis-enchanted universe. We had to build churches, temples, and synagogues to try to capture the sacred that was already there. And soon we could not even see soul in other humans outside of our group! Creation and even other humans were simply here for our utilitarian purposes. It was all here for our consumption.
At that moment, we entered into a state of alienation that is really the state of “sin.” We no longer belonged to this world. Maybe now (we can begin) to walk outside barefoot, like Francis did, experiencing no disconnect between ourselves and “Sister Earth, our Mother”—and in reparation for centuries of Christian blindness.