Daniel O’Leary An astonishing secret

Lockdown brought me a blessing through engaging with this second to last book of the late Fr Daniel O’Leary which had been awaiting my attention for a year. Reading the book became a timely blessing impacting my thinking and praying and hopefully my action. In a way there was nothing new in it, simply a reminder to see God in all things and all things in God. In another way it was full of newness, the perpetual newness of Jesus captured in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin as a bridge from Christianity towards the progress and evolution of the world. Yes, the book rattled my pride as orthodox Christian with calls for dismissing original sin, dualism in historic faith and over prioritising sexual ethics. Yet I felt compelled by its thesis of God’s invincible love being allied to the evolution of the world today. Daniel O’Leary has infectious magnanimity so this traditionalist was disarmed by his appeal, putting some issues on hold whilst reading it. Such putting on hold is aided by the book being constructed with an eye to Pope Francis’ own call for dialogue in his encyclical on the environment.

‘As we receive the gift of being in our birth, so we are called to receive the consummation of that gift in a future that transcends death. But the being which we receive, and the potential with which it is laden, awaken us to an active response. What we make of ourselves and of our world is crucial for the final, transforming self-gift of God by which God brings creation to its completion…. Are we, for instance, convinced that there is a spiritual power at work in our daily lives and in the evolution of our planet? Do we believe that here, at this stage of our evolution, is where God is most truly present?’ Such thinking is arresting, communicated with the passion of the author drawing from that of the Pope in the encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ (2015). Thinking about the environment is inseparable from thinking about reframing the doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection into a coherent whole. O’Leary like Teilhard sees the Big Bang at creation, the coming of Jesus into Mary’s womb and his resurrection representing facets of one explosion of God’s love worked out in time. ‘Nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence. The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into relationship with him.’ (National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil). ‘Each day in our world beauty is born anew … Human beings arise, time after time, from situations that seemed doomed ... Resurrection is an irresistible force’ (Pope Francis Evangelii Gaudium). That force of resurrection is carried for ever into the material order by the risen Christ. The Pope speaks of his namesake St Francis preaching to the birds ‘just as if they were endowed with reason’. As the author writes, ‘and in some sense they are [so endowed], for each of them is indwelt with infinite intimacy by the Logos, who is ‘the risen Christ who embraces and illuminates all things’ (Pope)’. 

‘Astonishing Secret’ impacted my thinking and my prayer. It affirms the contemplative vocation building from Teilhard and contemporary authors like Richard Rohr who writes: ‘Everything is profane if you live on the surface of it; everything is sacred if you go to the depths of it, even your sin. So, the division for the mystic, is not between sacred and secular things, but between superficial things and things at their depth – what Karl Rahner called “the mysticism of life”.’ The prime spiritual challenge of this book is the immediacy of God and our need to wake up to this within us and within all things. As for Teilhard the eucharist is the spiritual eye opener to the revelatory power of the creation we are part of, matter and spirit not separated but ultimately linked in Jesus Christ. The book speaks of how taking creation for granted can be linked to taking people the same way, contemplating God in nature being a school for contemplating God in people, yearning for the healing and transformation of pain and brokenness. ‘To love another person is to see the face of God’ (Les Misérables). All such contemplation is a waking up to the book title: ‘An astonishing secret: The love story of creation and the wonder of you’. We are created to love and be loved, to know and be known. ‘Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it, and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.’ (Dostoyevsky)

Inspiring thinking and spirituality flow through this book but it is primarily a call to action. It builds from ‘Laudato Si’ in its invitation for Christian faith to serve the new crusade for the environment recognising the dignity of the earth as part of God’s family. It’s a here and now challenge of a book thrilling with zest for faith and life exemplifying Gandhi’s call for each to help lift the whole from selfish destructiveness towards the spiritual and productive. Yes, it raises theological questions, but it is also a powerful and graspable statement of the main Christian thesis of God’s irrevocable love to be engaged with in all things.

Canon Dr John Twisleton        9 June 2020

Daniel O’Leary  An astonishing secret

The love story of creation and the wonder of you

Columba Books 2019 Kindle Edition £12.99 ISBN 978 1782183242 256pp