Fr. Mike McNamara
As I am writing this article I am preparing to leave on vacation. I don’t know about you, but I look forward to these days each year. Whether I travel to the Maine coast or the hills of the Berkshires or simply enjoy our beautiful town of Scituate, it really is all very “good”.
God on the 7th day, having finished creation, stopped and rested. Looking around at all that was created, it was clear, that all was “good”. On vacations, we stop and rest. We take the time to look around at our lives and, hopefully, see much that is “good”.
It is funny that often when we think of what is “good”, we often think no further than our next vacation spot, our newest car, a finished home or work project, or even another’s project or plan fulfilled. We may not often go beyond what eye can see, ears can hear, and body and mind can experience.
Yet that is so sad. If our lives are to know the fullness of creation’s “goodness”, we need to accept the invitation, to encounter its creator. If creation is beautiful and wondrous and so “good”, imagine, how much more so must be the one who created it!
Think of how often we love to walk in beautiful woods or stroll along the magnificent ocean that we abut here on the South Shore of Boston. It is all so close to home, it’s a part of our everyday life. (Hopefully we have not forgotten it is here!) Yet in being mesmerized by creation’s beauty and magnificence, can we also hear the call from the creator to realize it is all a gift to us. And the gift becomes even more joyfully received and embraced when the one who gives is acknowledged as beloved – and all that all is given, is given out of love.
In becoming more and more aware of this reality, we are able to enter into a deeper understanding and experience that all “goodness”, of this world, is a manifestation of God, who is the ultimate “good”.
God’s “goodness” draws us into a wider and deeper and higher experience of life. God’s “goodness”, manifested in creation, goes beyond the limited ideas of the “good” this world speaks about. It draws us into an encounter with the “goodness” of the divine, the supernatural, the eternal.
All of creation, therefore, is a manifestation of God’s “goodness” and love for us. The creator desires that we be encouraged by the “goodness” manifested in creation and come to encounter its fullness in He who is “good”.
This experience of divine “goodness” awakens in our lives a taste of the eternal “goodness” of Heaven, where we are invited to encounter all that is ‘good’ forever.
Whatever time you have for vacation, and wherever you might be, pray creation will awaken you to the creator. May all that is “good” in creation draw you into an encounter with the divine “goodness” that is eternal.
God bless you all.
Fr. Mike McNamara has been a priest for over 40 years in the Archdiocese of Boston and is founder and director of Servants of Christ Ministries, in Scituate, a ministry of evangelization and healing. He is also part-time Parochial Vicar of the Hingham Collaborative Parishes of St. Paul and Resurrection. The Along the Path column is shared among the clergy of Scituate.
