Keynote Address at Creation Day Program:

CREATION-CENTERED SPIRITUALITY

By Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, OCD

[ This is the version prepared beforehand by Bishop Labayen, for delivery at the ecumenical program, billed as "A Time for Celebration and Thanksgiving" held on Creation Day, September 1, 2003, at the grounds of the Pontifical University of Sto. Tomas, Manila, where the Anunciation Orthodox Church held a liturgical service and "Blessing of the Water."  Bishop Labayen departed little from this prepared text which was first delivered at St. Teresa's College in Quezon City last February 25. Other speakers at the Creation Day program were Fr. Tamerlane Lana, OP, UST Rector; Ed Aurelio Reyes, president of SanibLakas Foundation and coordinator of the Kalikhaan 2003 for Creation Celebration; Victoria Corral of Creation Spirituality Circle (CSC) and Love Life-Philippines (LLP), Fr. Georg Ziselsberger, SVD of GeoChris fouindation; and Fr. John Leydon of the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL). Fr. Philemon Castro of the Anunciation Orthodox Church led the service and the blessing. ]

E GATHER here today, to look into the nitty gritty of the care of our environment. The CARE Foundation has launched the program: "Adopt a Mountain." It is in the process of planning for the launching of "Adopt a Watershed."  Why such programs?

We realize that all life, particularly human life, is threatened today. The actual facts testify to this threat.

The animal and plant kingdoms have been created to sustain human life. The harmony within the network of the animal and plant life makes them so interconnected and interrelated for the mutual sustenance of all created life. Such is the marvelous wisdom of the Creator!

Unfortunately, our ecological environment is so exploited that sustainability of all life is not given its due and rightful attention. This is the root of the threat to all life on earth, including human life.

In fact, many animal and plant species have become extinct. Others are about to become so. The human species is not exempt from this prospect.

According to reliable statistics, unless the present ecological degradation and destruction is reversed, it won't be long when there will not be enough food and water for every human being living in the world.

Possibility of a Third World War

I ask: "If the Gulf War broke out because of the oil crisis, can war be avoided if there will not be enough food and water for everybody in the world?"

It will be a matter of life and death for everybody. Our very instinct of self-preservation will drive nations to scramble for food and water.  In the process, a global war between and among nations will be inevitable for the sake of self-survival.

God forbid that such a catastrophe happen!  The weapons of war today are such that compared to them, the Atomic bombs that wee dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were elementary!  Think about the Nuclear bomb as an example!  If such weapons of war will be used, the destruction of lives and lasting destructive effect on our ecological environment will be unimaginable!

The Only One Alternative!

If such is the prospect there is only one alternative.  How can we reverse the wanton destruction and degradation of our ecological environment?   

The program of "Adopt a Mountain" is one such step towards this reversal.  It will seek to preserve what remains of out watershed, forest and agricultural land. 

Global Consciousness: Care of Mother Earth

The whole world is conscious of the imperative of such a program.  It launched in 1992 the "care of the earth" program at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with its ensuing protocol.  It was followed up with the Kyoto protocol on Global Warming. A third follow-up took place in the Earth Summit at Johannesburg, ten years after (the summit in) Rio de Janeiro.  In all these successive global meetings on ecology, all nations are called upon to take responsibility for the "care of the earth".  All three protocols resounded with an urgent and insistent call to all peoples of the earth to assume immediate responsibility and action for the "care of the earth" for the sake of the life and the common good of our global community.  The message is clear: "Act now or perish!" 

Unfortunately, the President of the United States of America refused to sign these protocols.  And to think that much of the global ecological destruction is caused by lack of sufficient consciousness and commitment in the U.S.A. for the global ecological care for our one mother earth.  As if to say, "as long as U.S.A. survoves let the others 'go to hell'!"

The  politics of nations is such that it cannot provide an effective global political will for the "global care of the earth." Nations are scrambling for their vested interests and material profit.  Greed and selfishness under-gird the present globalization of the neo-liberal capitalist economy.

We need a deeper and more engaging dimension of peoples to bring about this necessary global political will.  Global political will simply means that all nations get their act together for one common cause, that is, the life and the common good of all nations, beyond the exclusive interest of any one nation.

In as much the same way that they did after the massive disastrous experience of second World War.  Coming to their senses, nations got together and organized the United Nations to see to it that such a massive destruction of lives and properties be not repeated. The cry was: "Never again!"

Peace negotiations and not war, non-violence, is the sure way to lasting global peace.

To this end, nations had to forego and gp beyond their selfish vested interests for the sake of the global common good.  This self-transcendence definitely speaks of the dynamic drive of the human spirit within those who organized the United Nations. 

The human spirit is the capacity of peoples to seek the Truth, the Good,  the Noble, and the Beautiful for all peoples beyond self-centered interests.  The promotion of the dynamic self-transcending life of the human spirit is the spirituality needed for the Third Millennium if we are to hop for a just and lasting global peace for all peoples. 

I hereby submit that this is the rationale for my talk entitled; "Creation-Centered Spirituality".

Definition of Terms: Creation and Spirituality

Creation 

Creation is an all-embracing word for all that the Creator created. Particularly, it has to do with the precious value of life whose well-spring is the very life of the Creator. When God created the whole universe he created it as a cosmic reality with its bio-diversity operating in harmony for the sake of the life He shared with it.  This cosmos is referred to as 'heaven and earth', that is, everything and everyone that comprise it.  The whole of humankind is part and parcel of it.  In fact, God created humankind when He took the earth and breathed into it. We were brought forth from the earth and to the earth we shall return.¹ 

We form a family with the earth and with all that make it up.  St. Francis of Assisi bore testimony to this truth when he related to the sun as his brother, to the moon as his sister, and so forth.

Significantly, the Creator created us, man and woman, to his image and likeness, capable of understanding and responsibility.  He singled us out of his Creation for a purpose.  And that is to be eventually his co-creator of a new heaven and a new earth in, with, and through Jesus Christ, the Son of God who took on our humanity.

Spirituality

The spiritual belief of out "Agtas" tells us that all signs of life on earth -- the green leaves of the trees, the chirping of the birds as they fly hopping from branch to branch, the living water that flows in our brooks and streams, the animals that roam the forest like them -- these signs of life reveal the presence and closeness of the Creator whom they call "Makidyepat", and recognize as fount and wellspring of all life.  This is what inspires and motivates them to respect and take care of the earth.

Unfortunately, short of this spiritual motivation our Christian loggers wantonly clear our forests, and extract minerals from the earth.  What drives them is greed for selfish monetary gain.  We know that our global warming today and our shortage of water and food in the near future, is caused by excessive gas emission of engines and by such wanton clearing of our forest and unlimited extraction of our minerals.  And all for the sake of selfish vested interests, particularly for monetary profit.

Such dimension does not do justice to the inherent nobility of our humanity.  It is shallow and irresponsible; it does not go deep enough to be able to draw from the human wellspring of human dignity and nobility.  To go to this this deeper dimension is what spirituality is all about.

Spirituality is innate to each and every human being born into this world.  By virtue of  this innate spirituality in us, we seek the true, the noble, the good, the beautiful; by it we look for the meaning of our existence and life here on earth; by it we give priority to life -- all life -- and everything that sustains this life, particularly our ecological environment; by it we are we are disposed to make sacrifices for the sake of the life of all, and for all; by it we can go beyond our individual interest for the sake of the common good of all; by it we are open to God and his will, and relate personally, in faith, with God.

Human spirit and the Spirit of the risen Christ.

In fact, when Jesus declared his mission saying: "I came that they may have life and have it to the full!"²,  He was precisely appealing to our human spirit for a response of Faith.³   On his part he gives us his own Spirit, as the risen Lord, who conquered all the adversaries and destroyers of life on earth.  His Spirit joins with our own spirit⁴ to help us see the light⁵, and to have the strength of will to uphold, defend and promote life -- all life.

Creation-Centered Spirituality: the call of the Third Millennium.

Creation-Centered Spirituality implies the life of our human spirit which is the seat of our cultural identity, of our world-view, our values and meanings.  And our cultural journey is, at the same time, a spiritual journey.  Through a dialogue of life it seeks an encounter with the human spirit where lies the very root of cultures.  In the human spirit lies the subject's yearning for the truth, the noble, the good and the beautiful, and ultimately, for God.  The human spirit reaches out to God.  The Spirit of the risen Christ joins the human spirit⁶ that it may live a life shared with God unto full humanity, full life together with with the integrity of creation, unto the realization, in Christ, our cosmic Redeemer, of 'the new heavens and the new earth', where according to his promise justice reigns⁷, where God will dwell with his people, and his people with their God⁸.

Conclusion.

To respond effectively to the urgent challenge that we take cae of the whole of creation, the actual prevailing brand of politics is not dependable.  We need a political will that springs from a creation-centered spirituality that will make us commiy ourselves to the care ofthe earth with the spiritual power to go beyond vested partisan and selfish interests, mindful of the common good of all peoples on earth and of a just and lasting global peace.

The whole cosmos needs to be redeemed.  Christ is the cosmic Redeemer.  Spirituality, as we described it above, is precisely Christ's testimony on the cross; "Mo greater love a man has that he lay down his life for his friends."⁹  It is this love that springs from the life of the human spirit united with Christ's gift for His Spirit as the risen Lord to us.  His Spirit unites with our human spirit to come up with the redemptive spirituality that will spell the needed political will which is centered in the cosmic life of the whole creation.

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¹Gen 1:26-30.

²Jn 10:10

³Jn 7:37-39

⁴Gal 4:6

⁵Jn 14:25

⁶Rom 8:14; Gal 4:6

⁷ 2 Pt 3:13

⁸Rev. 21:1-5

⁹Jn 15:13