Answers to God's Mysteries
By Cicily Sunny
(Continued)

Take Care of Plants and Animals

Speaking to his disciples about our duty to take care of plants and animals, Jesus says, "The animals and plants, and everything the Creator made to be useful to man, are a gift of love and a patrimony committed to the care of his children by the Father, so that they may use it with profit and gratitude to the giver of all providence. Therefore they are to be loved and treated with proper care….Care does not mean idolatry or immoderate affection for animals or plants, or anything else. Care means feeling of compassion and gratitude for the minor things that serve us and have a life of their own, that is, their sensitivity. The living soul of inferior creatures mentioned by Genesis is not the same as the soul of man. It is life, simply life that is being sensitive to real things, both material and emotional. When an animal dies, it becomes insensitive because death is its real end. There is no future for it. But while it lives it suffers cold, hunger, fatigue; it is subject to injuries, to pain, to joy, to love, to hatred, to diseases and to death." (V. 4, Ch. 538, P. 824).

Penance, Expiation, and God's Forgiveness

Consoling a woman who cries over the sins of her son, Jesus says, "You are not responsible for his error, and for your own relief you must know that you can bring about his salvation. The ruin of sons can be repaired by mothers. And that is what you will do. Your grief, since it is sincere, is not sterile, it is prolific. The soul you love will be saved through your suffering. You are expiating for him, and with such righteous intention that you are the indulgence of your son. He will go back to God. Do not weep." (V. 3, CH. 357, P. 474). 

Among the crowd of people who were gathered in the temple of Jerusalem for Pentecost somebody asked Jesus what would happen to those who would not surrender to the voice of the Lord. Looking at the scribes and Pharisees Jesus says, "Jeremiah told you what will happen to those who reply to the flash of divine wrath by increasing their sins and consider divine mercy as a proof of weakness on God's side….You, as the Eternal God said through the lips of Jeremiah, are like clay in the hands of the potter, as clay are those who consider themselves mighty, as clay are the inhabitants of this place and those of the royal palace. There is no human power that can resist God. And if the clay resists the potter and wants to take strange horrible shapes, the potter turns it into a handful of clay again and starts afresh and works in into another vessel until it realizes that the potter is the stronger and thus it yields to his will. And it may also happen that the vessel breaks into pieces because it persists in not being modeled, as it refuses the water with which the potter moistens it in order to be able to shape it without cracks. The potter then throws the refractory clay and the useless unworkable bits and pieces into the garbage can and he takes fresh clay and moulds it as he thinks best….And repeating the words of the Lord, he says: "As the clay is in the potter's hand, so you, Israel, are in the hand of God."  And the Lord adds, as a warning to those who are refractory, that only penance and repentance, when God reproaches man, can change the decree of God to punish a rebellious people." (V. 3, Ch. 411, P. 805).

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