~by Susi Pittman

The Vatican Council teaches that “The one true God by His most free design created the world.” And the Council of Florence stated, “God at what time He wished brought into being all creatures.”

Meditating on this truth, I felt myself falling into an endless “light” of love as I prayed and studied on just these sentences. Here are my thoughts:

God was “free” in the fullest sense of the word to create. He is complete and infinite in Himself and distinct from all of His creation. He never had to be given existence since He has it of Himself.

He always existed, and all that is was brought into being by Him. The creation of the world brought nothing to God that He did not already possess to an infinite degree.

Therefore, all that God has created is something desired by God. It is sustained by God’s divine providence as written by Saint Paul in his letters to the Hebrews, “upholding all things by the word of his power.” This is what the Church calls the doctrine of divine conservation. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that just as the reality of all creation is found in God’s essence, so also the existence of all things is constantly owing to the influence of God’s infinite power.

The creation of our world took place in time, because our worldly creation is outside of eternity and operates by measure of duration so to speak. God worked His creative power in the universe putting in place all that was necessary for its journey through time. Eternity is infinite, without measure. It is in the simple understanding that all of creation has an eternal journey, a future, and one that it can never finish. Jesus exhorts that very truth to us as He proclaims in Revelations 21:5. “Behold, I make all things new!”

All of this I believe as an act of faith, believing for that reason alone in the truthfulness of God’s holy message.

How could I ever love or thank my Creator enough?

Wishing you a blessed week as you contemplate God the Creator +

Susi Pittman is founder of CatholicStewardsofCreation.com and Owner-President of Twin Oaks Publishing; she is author of Animals in Heaven? Catholics Want to Know!; an advocate for the Florida Catholic Conference; a member of the St. Joseph’s Catholic Council of Women in Jacksonville, Florida; an Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Augustine;a member of the Florida Publishers Association, Independent Book Publishers Association, the National Association of Professional Women, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States and the National Audubon society.