Linda Gibler, OP
Throughout our Roman Catholic Tradition, from ancient biblical texts to Laudato Si’, we can hear creation singing God’s praise and revealing God to us. The Heavens tell the glory of God; the mountains echo with God’s majesty; oceans tell us of God’s enduring presence. Pope Francis, speaking of Saint Francis, “invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness” (LS’ 12). Contained within the vast landscapes of psalms and the “magnificent book” of creation, each quasar, mountain laurel, and manatee has its own way to praise God and reveal something of God to those who notice.
As we ponder the wisdom of creation, we would do well to focus first on common things, ordinary things that the Church already experiences as revelatory, such as the natural things we use in the sacraments. Rather than turning to exotic creatures like manatees and quasars, this essay explores one essential sacramental from each of the sacraments of initiation: water, olive oil, and wheat. What follows is one way of reading the magnificent book of creation. Using sacramentals as a place to start, what follows is the natural history of water, olive oil, and wheat.[1] What we shall see is that the role these elements play in sacraments is indeed embedded in their very nature. In and of themselves, water, olive oil, and wheat, themselves, tell the glory of God. In order to consider these common elements of daily life and worship, we will begin at the Beginning, when God‘s Spirit hovered over the dark chaos.
THE BEGINNING
The story of the sacramentals, like all stories, begins at the Beginning, 13.8 billion years ago at the first moment of creation. Among the primary particles that emerged from the singularity, the quantum fluctuation through which God called everything into being, were protons, simple hydrogen nuclei. In the extreme density and heat of the first moments of creation, these single hydrogen particles collided into each other, fusing into helium, lithium, and beryllium nuclei. This time of nucleosynthesis continued for only 15 minutes. In that brief time, the Universe expanded and cooled, and particles slowed to the point that they no longer had the energy to fuse into large nuclei when they collided. Fifteen minutes after creation had started, it seemed to have stopped. Perhaps God rested. The Universe, now 75 percent hydrogen, 25 percent helium, with just a trace of lithium and beryllium, continued to expand and cool for hundreds of thousands of years.[2]
After 380,000 years, the Universe quieted to the point that electromagnetic attraction could hold nuclei and elections together to form atoms. At this moment, when the haze of primary particles condensed into atoms, particles of light called photons freely moved through the now open space, and the Universe was flooded with light.
Over the next hundreds of thousands of years, these atoms, drawn together by gravity and electromagnetism, gathered into larger and larger clouds. Turbulence tore and pushed at these clouds, destroying some, compressing others, and pulling atomic matter into a vast cosmic web. Gravitational attraction continued to compress the surviving clouds and increase their density. As they grew larger and denser, the center of the clouds became increasingly compressed and hot. Atoms dissolved back into protons and electrons, and when it was hot enough, protons again collided with sufficient force to fuse into new elements. The gravitational force sufficient to ignite nuclear fusion was also strong enough to withstand the explosive release of light and energy. Through the chaotic turbulence of nuclear explosion and extreme pressure, the first stars were formed.[3]
Within the core of these massive, primal stars, creation resumed. Nuclei of hydrogen again collided to form helium, carbon, oxygen, and increasingly heavier elements. The energy released from the fusion at a star’s core forces its way outward through the layers of the star and eventually is released as light. This outward force balances the inward crush of gravity. These two forces maintain the star in dynamic tension as long as nucleosynthesis continues. However, once the star fuses all of its lighter elements into iron, the gravitational pressure of even the largest stars is no longer sufficient to sustain nucleosynthesis. Iron is the heaviest element formed in a star’s core. Once the outward force of fusion subsides, the gravitational balance of the star is broken and the layers of the star crash into the iron core. This stellar collapse is followed by a supernova explosion so intense that in the star’s death, all the remaining elements in the periodic table are formed. Supernova explosions of these primal stars seeded the Universe with all the elements, atoms formed once more in the relative calm of interstellar space, and the process of clouds condensing into stars began once more.
Not all second-generation stars were as massive as the first stars. Smaller stars do not have enough gravitational pressure to fuse increasingly heavier elements. When the nuclear reactions in their cores cease, rather than explode in supernova brilliance like their parent stars, they simply release their layers of elements into the surrounding space in what astronomers call a “planetary nebula.” This is the fate that awaits our Sun.
Through the life and death of large and small stars, all the elements heavier than helium came into being. As these elements mixed in the turbulence of space, atoms and then molecules formed. In this chaotic environment, some of the hydrogen that formed in the first moments of creation bonded with the oxygen fused in stars. With this bonding, water, the first sacramental we consider below, was formed.[4]
WATER
As new star-birthing regions begin to collapse, their particles accelerate, collide, and increase the temperature of their nursery. In regions enriched by water molecules, star birth is added by vast clouds of water vapor that absorb heat, which allows gravity to collapse the cloud into a star more easily. That our Sun was birthed in a watery bath is evidenced by the presence of water throughout the Solar System. Water is present from the icy comets of the Oort Cloud at the outer reaches of the Solar System to the planets and moons, and even on the Sun itself. As unbelievable as it seems, spectroscopy reveals that liquid water is present in the shadowy regions of sunspots.[5]
Our Sun is a second-generation star that formed some five billion years ago from the remnant of several supernovas. As the cloud, enriched with heavy elements, collapsed to form our Sun, it began to rotate and spin a skirt of heavy elements around it. As the Sun grew in size, it attracted and pulled more of the elements toward itself. When its core was so dense and hot that nuclei began to fuse, it burst into light with a force that threw the remaining elements far enough away that they would not fall into the Sun but still remained within its gravitational embrace. As the newly formed star continued to spin, the cloud spun with it, smoothing out into bands that eventually formed our Solar System.
Slowly, through collisions and gravitation, the inner bands swept all the material in their reach together, forming the eight planets and the asteroid belt.[6] Eventually, the collisions ceased (or nearly so) and the young planets, including Earth, began to calm down.[7] Heavier elements settled to the core of the planets while lighter elements floated to the surface. On Earth, this settling eventually forms an atmosphere, a rocky crust, and oceans. Somewhere in the murky depths of the early oceans, about 3.8 billion years ago, God called forth life.[8]
The oceans, like the stellar mix that formed them, were a soupy mix of elements, molecules, and chemical reactions. In the churning waves, the elements required for life mixed and remixed, drew together and tore apart. Within 200,000 years of the oceans forming, life bubbled forth. Every being on Earth, from the very first called to life to every being born today – whether plant, animal, or fungus – is conceived and drawn to life through water.
Not only are all beings born of water; they are sustained by water. The cells that make up all living beings are tiny liquid bubbles containing an uncountable number of processes all happening at once. The activity within cells is many times more complex than entire cities. Yet each transaction occurs within a water medium. Not only are cells filled with water, but they also float within a water bath. Every living cell has at least one portion of its membrane exposed to a watery substance that carries nutrients to the cell and washes wastes away. Life is sustained by a watery matrix both inside and out.
Water, then, assists in the birth of stars. It is the womb out of which God called forth the first life on the planet and every life since. Through its capacity as a solvent and in transport, water sustains, nourishes, and cleanses every living thing.
OLIVE OIL
Life on Earth was born swaddled in oil. In the primordial chemical soup of Earth’s early oceans, chains of molecules formed, snapped, and re-formed. Reactions twisted into shape and were torn apart in the turbulence of waves, currents, and storms. Some 3.8 billion years ago, one of these reactions was wrapped in a lipid bubble that protected it from the watery chaos long enough for life to take hold. Lipid bubbles form spontaneously in the oceans. Their hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails create films in water that fold in on themselves, forming water-filled vesicles. One of these formed around a chemical process allowing it enough protection from the turbulence of the ocean for life to twitch forth.[9]
This oily membrane not only protected the nascent life, but it also allowed the chemical process to continue, drawing nutrient molecules into its watery interior and passing refuse out. This flow of resources allowed the nascent life to continue, and eventually to grow to the point that the membrane could stretch to embrace two cells that then separate into daughter cells.
Through successive generations, as primitive cells adapted to their environments, their internal chemistry changed and their membranes complexified. For life to survive and evolve, these oily layers needed to discern the difference between a food source and a toxin, allowing entrance to one while denying access to the other. As evolution continued, these membranes also needed to distinguish the difference between a benign touch and a hazardous encounter.
As amazing as it seems, all living beings on Earth are the descendants of these very first cells. Slowly, after millennia and millennia of adaptation and change, the first complex living beings moved onto land. Through successive generations of evolution, adapting to the range of environments the shifting continents offered, algae and lichens evolved into mosses, ferns, conifers, and flowering plants, including olive trees. All the while, animals evolved alongside these plants, exploring and inhabiting the new landscapes of food and protection as plants cover the continents.[10]
Flowering plants first emerged some 100 million years ago, and with them came a new strategy for flourishing. All flowering plants form fruits. In fact, a flower is an immature fruit and fruits are designed to be eaten. Before flowering plants, if an animal nibbled on a plant, the plant was damaged or destroyed. Too many leaves eaten, and a tree’s ability to capture light are diminished; when a bulb is rooted up, the plant may not have access to other stored nutrients. However, flowering plants thrive through generosity. When an animal eats a fruit, it is likely to ingest seeds along with the food it is seeking. The seeds pass through the animal’s digestive tract and are deposited with a bit of fertilizer. Since animals tend to stay close to their food source, the seeds are likely to be carried from their source but dropped in a similar environment. Seeds left at a distance rather than dropped beneath their source are more likely to flourish without competing for light and the same nutrient sources as the parent plant. Thriving plants lead to more fruit for the animals who eat them, and so the population of both plant and its benefactor spread. Flowering plants survive by giving away food to be consumed. Animals evolved to eat this free energy source; plants responded by providing the nutrition their benefactors needed. Amazingly, flowering plants thrive through generously providing the nutritional needs of their ecosystem.[11]
In the Mediterranean, where our Christian sacramental system emerged, olive trees were perhaps the most successful of all trees in providing nutrition. As with all beings, the living cells of an olive tree are contained, protected, and nurtured by an oily membrane. However, the fruits of these trees also have drops of oil within their cells and beads of oil stored in their flesh. Long before humans gathered olives for oil or learned to leach away their bitterness with sea water, birds and browsers, like goats relied on the olive’s oil to sustain them through the sparse winter. Olive trees provided ripe fruit continually for several weeks through the winter, supplying a steady source of fat for large birds, browsers, and the carnivores who stalked them.
Humans have harvested olives from ancient times. In fact, sometimes it is said that the tree of life in the Genesis Story is an olive tree. Olives produce best when each branch has the benefit of the breeze and the touch of the Sun. Olive trees actually benefitted from the accidental pruning that occurred when their branches were broken by ancient harvesters. Olive oil was used in almost every aspect of Mediterranean life, from smelting of bronze and protection of metals to cooking and lighting, to bathing and the cleansing of newborns.[12]
Olive and other oils provide lipid molecules to the animals (including humans) that eat them. These oily molecules encase all living cells and keep them in communication with the rest of the organism. One way oil does this is through the myulare sheath that coats nerve cells.[13] This specialized membrane speeds stimulus from cells to the spinal cord and brain where they are decoded and made sense of by the animal. Because of oily membranes, hawks can see their prey, hounds can scent their way home, and humans can feel the warmth of a loving embrace.
Oil in our bodies then, allows us to reach out to others. It protects us from pathogens and maintains our health. It coats our cells and our bodies. The oil in our skin keeps our skin healthy and makes our faces shine.
WHEAT
The first living beings on Earth were single-celled bacteria that flourished deep in the oceans where they were protected from the radiation of the Sun. Eventually, their numbers increased and life moved closer to the surface of the waters. A brief 200,000 years after life began, the descendants of these first creatures acclimated to sunlight and learned not only to endure it, but also to find in it a new source of energy. Blue-green algae, the first photosynthetic beings, changed the course of life on Earth (or perhaps fulfilled it) by absorbing a bit of the energy from the Sun, using it for their own metabolism, and in turn giving it to the creatures who preyed upon them. In a Promethean gesture, photosynthetic creatures became the bottom of the food chain for all subsequent generations of life. Their bodies became food and their exhalation produced a blanket of ozone that protected more delicate creatures from solar radiation. Later, the oxygen photosynthetic beings released became a source of energy for their predators.
As the oxygen levels built up in the atmosphere and the protective layer of ozone gathered, bacteria, proto-plants, and finally animals moved to dry land. The first beings in wheat’s lineage to move onto land were most likely algae that initially had acclimated to intertidal zones. Eventually, the pioneer species developed the capacity to withstand the crushing gravity and desiccating aridity. No longer able to reach particles suspended in ocean currents, these first plants created currents in their roots that drew nutrients from the soil. With the help of bacteria, which fed on decaying vegetation, plants created the environment for animals to move into.
The first animals to come ashore likely did so to feed on tidal debris. Eventually, they laid their eggs in quiet pools and returned to the ocean. Slowly, animals followed plants across beaches and up riverbanks until the continents were covered with life. The story generally told at this point traces the lineage of lung fish and lobe- finned fish through amphibians and lizards, then mammals and primates, and ends with the emergence of humans. Wheat’s story takes a different path.
Through successive generations of evolution, adapting to shifting environments, early plants eventually evolved into grasses. Grasses first emerged 77 million years ago, and 20 million years later they had spread in vast plains across the continents.
With grasses, the habit of plants feeding the food chain once again took a generous turn. Most varieties of plants that evolved before grasses were damaged when their leaves were nibbled, branches snapped, or roots dug. In response to the animals that grazed, grasses evolved a new way of growing from the base of their leaf blades rather than from the tips. This meant that grazing animals could feast and the grass would not sustain much damage. In fact, most grasses actually benefit from grazing (or mowing). Cutting the leaves causes the grass plant to send out more roots, so as animals feed, the grasses grow thicker, producing even more grass for the grazing animals. Grasses evolve generosity as a strategy for survival.
Grasses propagate in two ways: the first is through sending out new shoots, which is facilitated by grazing animals, and the second is through seeds. Grass seeds, bundled at the tips of stalks, are carried from the parent plant by wind and animals. The seeds blow where they will. Seeds that are not eaten fall to the ground or get tangled in animal fur to be shaken off and land in a variety of soils. The attractiveness of the seeds as a food source guarantee the animals will help spread them to new soils.
Wheat and other grains, such as rice and corn, take this strategy for survival to a new level of generosity. Grains are grasses with large, nutrient-rich seed heads. Most of the nutrients in a grain’s seeds feeds not the seed but the animals who rely on it. The superabundance of the proteins and sugars ensure that the animal population is well fed. Finding the large seed heads an accessible and abundant source of energy, they repeatedly carry the remaining seed to new soil. Wheat carries the gift of self-sacrifice for the sake of the community to previously unseen extremes. Wheat takes from the energy of the Sun and the nutrients of the soil, combining them into edible blades and golden seeds heads. These are offered as food to all those who would benefit by eating them. The grazers are kept healthy and the wheat is enriched. Because of this generosity, the entire ecosystem is more likely to thrive.
Humans and our primate ancestors evolved with grains as a food source. Grains extend their generosity to the global human community in the form of stable foods such as breads, rice cakes, tortillas, and porridges. Cultures around the world have used grains in their religious expression, often as in thanksgiving for divine generosity. In Western tradition, this was seen in the grain offerings to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and in the very first offering mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures: Abel’s offering of the first grains of the harvest to God. From Abel’s ancient offering to contemporary Eucharistic celebrations, God’s generosity is made manifest in wheat as it has for more than 50 million years.
CONCLUSIONS
If creation tells about God, then learning from the way God created the Universe and about things God created tells us something important. With our common beginning first outlined, we turned to the evolutionary paths through which God created particular sacramentals. By looking at their histories and the roles they play in the community of life, we learn more of the stories that together make up salvation history. When we take this long view[14], we recognize that God blessed the Earth community through water, olive oil, and wheat long before our human ancestors ever experienced them or taught us to recognize God’s presence in them in our sacramental celebrations.
Even though most Christians will agree that the fullness of Revelation is recounted in the Gospels, we would not think of discarding the epistles and the rest of the New Testament. Similarly, the Old Testament enriches our understanding of revelation. Perhaps we again will think similarly of the “Magnificent Book,” the First Book of Revelation. We live in a God-drenched Universe; “the heavens are telling the Glory of God, day pours out the word to day, and night to night imparts knowledge (cf. Ps 19:2).” Perhaps we again will learn to approach creation reverently; when we do, we will have rediscovered an ancient scripture and from it learned a better way to live together on this beautiful and stressed planet we have as our home.
The First Book of Revelation, creation, goes unread and largely ignored. As our ecological systems are stressed, while our weather patterns are disturbed, when water is rarely safe to drink without treatment, and as most of us live with several bad-air-quality days each year, our attention has begun to turn back to creation and our role as tenders of the Garden. Unfortunately, we often turn back as managers and mechanics sure of our ability to fix what is wrong or at least confident that we are clever enough to adapt to what nature throws at us. By and large, we have neglected to approach Nature as drenched in the revelation of God. Through Laudato Si’, Pope Francis calls us to deepen our relationship with creation; and with him we pray:
Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love,
teach us to contemplate you
in the beauty of the universe,
for all things speak of you.
Awaken our praise and thankfulness
for every being that you have made.
Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined
to everything that is. (LS’ 246)
Linda Gibler, OP, PhD, assistant professor of science and religion at Oblate School of Theology, is also its associate academic dean.
[1] Throughout this essay, I cite classic texts for scientific information. Comprehensive information on the formation of the Universe is also available at www.bighistoryproject.com.
[2] For detailed accounts of the early Universe, see: Philip Ball, Life’s Matrix: A Biography of Water (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), Armand Delsemme, Our Cosmic Origins: From the Big Bang to the Emergence of Life and Intelligence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Roger A. Freedman and William J. Kaufmann, Universe, 6th ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2002), Joseph Silk, The Big Bang, 3rd ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001), Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story: from the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era—a Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992).
[3] For detailed accounts of the formation and life cycles of stars, see Delsemme, Our Cosmic Origins, Freedman and Kaufmann, Universe, Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story.
[4] For more on the origin of water, see Chapter 4 in West Marrin, Universal Water: The Ancient Wisdom and Scientific Theory of Water (Makawao, Maui, HI: Inner Ocean Publishing, Inc., 2002).
[5] For information about water in the Solar System, see Part II in Freedman and Kaufmann, Universe, and Chapter 4 in Ball, Life’s Matrix.
[6] Beyond the planets is the Kuiper Belt, with Pluto and thousands of other planetismals, and beyond that, the Oort Cloud with its comets.
[7] For a detailed account of how the planet Earth formed, see Chapter 5 in Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, and Chapter 3 in Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (New York: Copernicus, 2000).
[8] For more on the origin of life on Earth, see Chapter 5 in Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, Ward and Brownlee, Rare Earth, and Chapters 5 and 6 in Delsemme, Our Cosmic Origins.
[9] For information about the condition of Earth when life formed, see especially chapter 4 in Ward and Brownlee, Rare Earth.
[10] For a complete story of plant evolution, see Thomas L. & Michael G. Barbour& C. Ralph Stocking & Terence M. Murphy Rost, Plant Biology (Davis, California: Wadsworth, 1998).
[11] For a poetic telling of the story of plants, see “How Flowers Changed the World,” in Loren Eisely, The Star Thrower (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1978).
[12] For more on the history of olive trees and oil, see Mort Rosenblum, Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit (New York: North Point Press, 1996).
[13] For information about the function of the nervous system, see especially chapter 22 in The Colorado College Colorado Springs, Biological Science: A Molecular Approach, Teacher’s Annotated Edition, 6th ed. (Lexington MA.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990).
[14]Timeline
13.8 bya The Beginning
15 minutes atb Nucleosynthesis stops
380,000 years atb Atoms form, Light floods the Universe
700,000 years atb Primal Stars form
13 bya Water forms
5 bya Sun forms
4.6 bya Earth forms
4 bya Oceans form
3.8 bya Life emerges
3.6 bya Photosynthesis
1.5 bya Respiration
1 bya Bacteria on land
475 mya Plants on land
430 mya Animals on land
230 mya Dinosaurs emerge
200 mya Mammals emerge
130 mya Flowers and Fruits
77 mya Grasses emerge
67 mya Dinosaurs’ extinction
2 mya Humans emerge
30 tya First evidence of bread
23 tya Proto-agriculture
9 tya Cities emerge
atb = after the beginning
bya = billion years ago
mya= million years ago
tya = thousand years ago