The Cosmic Covenant and Traditional Piety

In recent months, my columns have underscored the present-day relevance of Catholicism’s teaching on the subject of integral ecology. In particular, I’ve been interested in our popes’ consistent message that all creatures share in a cosmic covenant, which is to say that an intimate bond unites every creature in heaven and on earth with one another and with their Triune Lord. As I’ve tried to demonstrate, this approach stands in a league of its own in comparison with what we find in mainstream environmentalism today.

What I’d now like to do is probe more deeply into the foundation of this vision, filling in some details that reinforce magisterial teaching but which our popes have not addressed in detail. Specifically, I want to underscore the strong grounding that this enterprise has in Scripture and Tradition.

I view this as an important task because, despite its recurring appearance in the writings of recent popes, it would be easy to dismiss the notion that man has a covenant with creation as merely poetic or unduly anthropomorphic. On what basis, one might ask, can there exist a covenant between man and sub-personal creatures when they can’t freely reciprocate whatever goodwill we show toward them?

This is a fair question, and yet a closer examination of Scripture demonstrates that extending the covenantal framework to embrace the entire created order is anything but a modern innovation. Indeed, it turns out that it is more a retrieval of the biblical revelation of man as the nexus of all creation, bound to all living beings in kinship and tasked with wedding them to their Creator through the exercise of loving dominion.

The Prophets

The concept of a covenant uniting God, man, and all creation is a theme that runs throughout the canon of Scripture.

For example, Hosea 2:18 speaks about the promise of creation’s future renewal: “I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground.” Celebrated texts like Isaiah 11:6–9 and Ezekiel 34:25–9 likewise point to a time when war will be banished and all creatures will dwell together in a world free from suffering and death.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah envisions God’s covenant with creation as both a future and present reality. According to the Lord’s message conveyed by this prophet, it is an unbreakable bond embedded in the very fabric of the cosmos, personified in “my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night.” In this text, the Lord informs us that his fidelity is as reliable as the cadence of that rhythm by which day and night ineluctably arrive “at their appointed time” (Jer 33:20–22).

Genesis 9

While the prophetic literature contains some important passages that touch on God’s covenant with creation, it is most clearly revealed, in the first instance, where it is explicitly expressed. This comes at the conclusion of the Genesis flood narrative, in which God expressly binds himself not only with Noah’s family but moreover with all living things: “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you” (Gen 9:10).

The text proceeds to specify the wide scope of creatures that are “with” Noah—“the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you.” As the narrative indicates next, the cosmic image of the rainbow is a perpetual sign of “the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature…a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen 9:12–13). All told, the Hebrew word for covenant (brîṯ) occurs here seven times in a span of just eight verses, expressed alternatively as a “covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh,” an “everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth,” and “the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth” (Gn 9:15–16).

In contrast with the way they are so often treated within today’s agro-industrial complex, the Noahic covenant envisions other creatures not as man’s subjects, but rather as our partners in covenantal kinship. Notably, St. John Chrysostom called attention to the importance of this relationship already in the Patristic period (and therefore centuries in advance of modern environmentalism with its sensitivity to the well-being of other species). According to this saint, the repetition of the covenantal promise here in Genesis 9 reveals that the Lord “extends his loving kindness to the animals and wild beasts.” Remarking on God’s care for both domesticated animals (“cattle”) and wild creatures (“beasts”) in Genesis 1:24 and 8:1, Chrysostom insists that God’s covenant is for “all creatures alike” and “never-ending and coterminous with the duration of the world.”

Commenting on this same passage centuries later, Pope John Paul II would teach, “[It] opens our eyes to a new vision of the world. It helps us to become aware of the world’s value in the eyes of God, who included the whole work of creation in the covenant made with Noah and committed himself to preserving it from destruction.”

Genesis 1–2

In contrast with these passages, the Hebrew term for ‘covenant’ (berith) does not appear in the first two chapters of Scripture. Nevertheless, Pope Benedict and other biblical scholars have contended that the concept of covenant is deeply embedded in these chapters insofar as the Sabbath itself is the sign of Scripture’s first covenant. This claim finds support in the Book of Exodus, where the Sabbath precept is explicitly connected with God’s rest on the seventh day of creation as “a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested (Ex 30:17; cf. 20:8–11).”

Further, this perspective would seem to be reinforced by the etymological affinity between the Hebrew verb for God’s Sabbath “rest” (shabbat) in Gen 2:2–3 and the number seven, which is often used in reference to covenant oaths when deployed as a verb. Understood in this light, the sacred author’s portrayal of God having “rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done” is a clever wordplay. It suggests that the work of creation culminated when God “sevened himself” to all of creation by means of a covenantal oath.

It is striking that Benedict XVI explored this very point in not one but two Easter Vigil homilies. In his 2011 message, the pope explicitly taught that “the Sabbath was an expression of the covenant between God and man and creation.” From the fact that he chose to reflect on it during the most important celebration of the liturgical year, it is clear that the pontiff saw this point as essential for understanding creation and man’s role in it. Covenantal communion, he taught, is not “something extra, something added later to a world already fully created.”

On the contrary, Benedict habitually stressed that covenant “is inbuilt at the deepest level of creation” and that “covenant is the inner ground of creation, just as creation is the external presupposition of the covenant.” According to Ratzinger and the Catechism that he curated, God made the world to establish a space to communicate his undying covenantal love and draw all creatures to himself.

With this in mind, Cardinal Ratzinger made this bold proclamation in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy: “The goal of creation is the covenant…The goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the same—divinization, a world of freedom and love.” All this is to say that the biblical metaphor of creation across seven days is covenantal. It is a device deployed to drive home an implication of God’s covenant with the cosmos enacted through his “rest” on the seventh day. In imitation of their Lord, the people of Israel—along with all of creation—are called to participate in that same covenant by keeping holy his Sabbath every seventh day. As Ratzinger notes, this biblical insight reveals that the “inner rhythm” of creation is a “rhythm of seven,” which is nothing less than a “rhythm of worship.”

In the words of the Catechism, the Bible’s opening creation narrative is therefore best thought of as hymnody—a “liturgical poem” sung to the glory of God.

Pointers from liturgy and folk traditions

Beyond Scripture, the cosmic dimension of God’s covenant is evident in Christian traditions the world over. Folk wisdom and a myriad of devotions testify to the fact that all creatures of our God and King partake in divine communion in concert with those of us who bear his image.

Notably, tradition has often depicted animals engaged in divine adoration—especially at pivotal moments in salvation history. Take the night of Christ’s birth, for instance. On this holy night, birds chant praises to the divine infant. Bees awake from sleep and hum a symphony of praise. Plants bow in reverence towards Bethlehem. Cattle and deer fall on their knees. It is even said that this event occasioned animals to talk like humans. On that note, a particularly playful old French mystery play has the cock crow, ‘Christus natus est’ (Christ is born), prompting the ox to moo ‘Ubi?’ (Where?), to which the lamb responds, ‘Bethlehem,’ and the ox brays, ‘Eamus!’ (Let us go!).

Another illustration can be found in the realm of the visual arts. Although the New Testament says nothing of their presence at the manger, iconographers placed an ox and ass at the scene of Christ’s birth thanks to an inter-textual reading of two Old Testament texts in the Septuagint. One of these comes from Isaiah: “An ox knows its owner and a donkey the feeding trough of its master, but Israel has not known me and the people have not understood me” (Is 1:3 LES). The other is drawn from Habakkuk 3:2, in which it is said of the Lord, “In the midst of two living beings…you will be recognized.” As Pope Benedict recounts, these passages led the ancient Church to perceive the ox and ass as worshipers engaged in homage to the infant Jesus. Drinking deeply from Scripture’s well, Benedict notes that the ancients beheld in this scene “an image of a hitherto blind humanity which now, before the child, before God’s humble self-manifestation in the stable, has learned to recognize him.”

Like the sacred authors of Scripture, the Fathers understood that this is true not merely of the barnyard animals that were present to witness Christ’s birth but that it indeed applies to all creatures of all times. To recall a representative example, St. Augustine emphasized that all creatures glorify God simply by living according to their proper natures. Along the same lines, Tertullian went so far as to affirm that “every creature prays,” after which he proceeded to illustrate:

[C]attle and wild beasts pray and bend their knees; and when they issue from their layers and lairs, they look up heavenward with no idle mouth, making their breath vibrate after their own manner. Nay, the birds too, rising out of the nest, upraise themselves heavenward, and, instead of hands, expand the cross of their wings, and say somewhat to seem like prayer. What more then, touching the office of prayer? Even the Lord Himself prayed; to whom be honor and virtue unto the ages of the ages!

St. Basil held a similar outlook yet extended it to include inanimate creation. Asserting that “the deeps sing in their language a harmonious hymn to the glory of the Creator,” he added that the waters above the heavens “give glory to the Lord of the universe” as they yield rain, snow, sleet, and hail. This is the same dynamic later captured by St. Francis of Assisi in his renowned canticle depicting all creatures united in a litany of praise to God.

This vision is also enshrined in the great hymns of the Church. Among the countless examples that might come to mind, moving reflections on the glories of creation are featured in such pieces as “For the Beauty of the Earth,” “Let All Things Now Living,” and “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” The souls of countless Catholics have likewise been raised to God through the uplifting solemnity of “All Creatures of Our God and King,” as the hymn invites us to join in the joyful chorus of praise bursting forth from burning sun, silver moon, rushing wind, clouds that sail in heaven along, flowing water, and masterful fire.

Yet another area to consider can be found in the traditions of “wild saints,” like St. Benedict of Nursia, who was regularly fed by ravens. Or think of St. Francis of Assisi, who famously conversed with and tamed a terrifying wolf. And then there’s St. Seraphim of Sarov, who formed a close bond with a bear and expressed gratitude to mosquitos for helping the mystic to corral his passions.

Speaking of bears, traditional lore surrounding this creature figured prominently in the life of another ancient saint—and in his wake a contemporary pope. According to legend, 8^th-century St. Corbinian was en route to Rome when a bear tore the bishop of Freising’s horse to pieces. The saint chastised the beast for his destructive actions and, as a punishment, made him carry his belongings the rest of the way to the Eternal City. Corbinian eventually made it to Rome, and the tamed beast went on to become a time-honored emblem of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising.

Centuries later, this creature would prominently feature on the episcopal coat of arms of a later bishop from this same locale: the Rome-bound Joseph Ratzinger. An unpretentious soul, this son of Bavaria had no desire to leave his fatherland in search of fame, and in this way he identified with Corbinian’s bear in his willingness to submit to a higher power and follow a path of service that he had not chosen for himself. Like his beloved mentor St. Augustine, Ratzinger realized that serving as the Lord’s “beast of burden” may not be all roses, but that it is at least an assured way of remaining close to him. As Ratzinger saw it, Corbinian’s bear laden with a heavy load against his will is “an image of what I should be and of what I am.”

This autobiographical anecdote is just one illustration of Joseph Ratzinger’s great esteem for the myriad folk traditions and devotional practices of the Church in which other creatures play a central role. Nevertheless, the late pontiff’s primary concern always came back to Sacred Scripture in one way or another. Following suit, in my next column I will delve more deeply into what the Bible has to say on the nature of the dominion that God has tasked us with exercising over our fellow partners in the Lord’s cosmic covenant.

Catholic World Report