Co-Creatorship

Appreciating our role as co-creators with God

04/09/2018

Luke 1:26-38 The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, "Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you." But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end." Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."

Ever since God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he destined them to be co-creators with him. After all, Genesis 1:27 explains that God made the first man and woman “in his image and likeness.” If he creates, therefore, they too will create in their own way; creating was hard-wired into their DNA. Man and woman can’t help but create: from the stick-figure drawings of a kindergartner to the paints of Rembrandt, from a little girl’s pretend tea party to Emeril who cooks for a living on television (“bam!”), from a young man who writes poetry for his girlfriend (“Roses are red, violets are blue…”) to Dante’s immortal Divine Comedy, we are created to be co-creators.

Etienne Gilson, the brilliant French philosopher, put the matter this way: “It is God who fecundates our thought by His Word; nor is He only the interior master as a voice that whispers in the ear of the mind, He is the light whereby it sees, and more still, He is its food, as bread in the mouth; and more, the living seed that enters the womb of thought, espouses and fecundates it that it may conceive the truth” (The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 137). In other words, our acts of creation are always dependent on divine assistance, from beginning to end. Nowhere does this dependence shine more brightly than when a husband and wife conceive a child. Husband and wife each provide 23 chromosomes for the “material side” of the human person, but God alone supplies the soul, the “spiritual side” of a person. We reach the heights of our calling to be co-creators when we have a baby.

On March 25 every year the Church celebrates the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived in the womb of his mother Mary. This year the feast falls on April 9 because it was bumped due to Holy Week and Easter Week. Jesus had to be crucified before he was conceived this year! If conceiving a child is the highest mountain range of human achievement, then Mary’s virginal conception of Christ is the summit of that range. Notice how Mother Mary’s words echo the total dependence on God that Gilson described. After Gabriel announces how God will cooperate in the conception of his Son in her womb, Mary humbly replies: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Save only for the work of Christ himself, humanity never stood taller or achieved anything more of lasting glory than when Mary accepted the annunciation of the angel. No one was a more sublime co-creator than the Blessed Virgin Mary because she took part in the creation of her own Creator.

I think we can cull out two important consequences from this brief reflection on co-creatorship. First, everyone without exception is called to create, to some degree and in some fashion. Not one human being has entered this world but in the image and likeness of God. As the bumper-sticker teaches: “God don’t make junk.” Hence, we should accord each other the dignity of being co-creators, and respect and reverence one another, no matter how humble someone’s circumstances.

Secondly, we have no room or right to boast of all our accomplishments. When Ed Seiter sets up for Spring Festival, when Suzanne McGraw takes Communion to the sick in the hospital, when Leo Anhalt builds a monastery, when Laverne Neihouse sews Fr. Pius’ alb, when Fr. John puts people to sleep in his looooooong sermons, we cannot take too much credit because we are only CO-creators, we are not the masters of our masterpieces. We can repeat the words of Mary, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord.”

One day an arrogant atheist scientist wanted to challenge God on creation. He boasted: “We have learned how to create human beings now, and so no longer need you.” God replied, “Oh, really?” “Yes,” said the atheist, “we can even create people from the dirt like you originally did.” “Watch this!” rejoiced the atheist as he bent down to gather dirt. God quietly said: “Get your own dirt.”  In heaven, all atheists and scientists (and everyone else) will say like Mary: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!