The Cosmic Christ, a Franciscan Teaching

The Cosmic Christ can be defined as that aspect of God which pervades all of creation, the Christ who "fills the universe in all its parts" (Ephesians 1:23).  The Franciscan teaching of this is based firmly in the theology of Bonaventure (Saint Bonaventure, born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano) and Scotus that flows from the spirituality of Francis and Clare and their early followers. It is basically Trinity-centered and Christ-centered (Jesus said, “If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?, say to them, ‘We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image. ‘If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’, say, ‘We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.’ If they ask you, ‘What is the sign of your father in you?’, say to them, ‘It is movement and repose).'”Gospel of Thomas

Bonaventure brought new insights of a Trinity theology, building on the work of some great minds of the past.  For Bonaventure, the First Person of the Trinity ­ the Father-Mother Person - is Love, the Source of all that is good, and Font of all goodness.  This God wants to express God Self, and so the Word - the Second Person - expresses the overflowing goodness and love of God.  The self-consciousness of this love, Love aware of itself, is the Word expressed inwardly; the Word expressed outwardly IS God's creation of the world out of Love.  The Third Person - the Spirit Person - is the mutual love between the Father-Mother Person and the Word and is God living and active in this world.

Franciscan theologian Zachary Hayes, OFM, states that when God's Word, Love aware of itself, comes pouring into nothingness, the universe happens. 

Revelation really begins not with the Bible but with creation. If the universe is the external embodiment of the Inner Word of God, says Hayes, "There is something Incarnational throughout the whole of creation."

 Bonaventure's teaching leads us to an almost incredible conclusion. Every leaf, cloud, fruit, animal, and person is to be seen as an outward expression of the Word of God in Love!  Thus each creature has its own identity, integrity, and dignity.  Each is sacred because it holds something of the Word of God, Christ, in a unique way.  According to Hayes, the thrush that serenades us, the water that quenches our thirst, you and I - "each creature is a word of God (with a small "w"), spoken in love, by Love itself!

Scotus asserted that Jesus Christ was God's perfect creation, who in turn would love God perfectly.  This perfect creation existed in God's intention before the world was created; that this Word was "the first-born of all creation" (Colossians 1:15); that "all things came to be through (this Word)" (John 1:3); that the Word became human out of love, not primarily to make up for our sin.

 What does this have to do with Franciscan eco-spirituality?  Today, it is rather common to speak of the earth-spirit, the earth as a living organism (Lovelock's Gaia Theory), the innate rights of all creatures, and so on.  In the nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit with a deeply Franciscan mind and heart, referred to a similar reality: "There lives the dearest freshness deep down things."

I like to think THAT the "dearest freshness" in all creatures has to do with the Christ who "fills the universe in all of its parts," the aspect of the Cosmic Christ that determines each creature's being and unifies all that is, bringing differentiation and union in the universe (Thomas Berry). For me, this is where the meaning of the "new cosmology" (Brian Swimmer’s "Hidden Heart of the Cosmos") resides. 

This is how the "relational universe" of today's physics comes close to the "sister-brother" world of Francis and Clare and where a living tradition and new thought come together.  I believe that all creatures are intimately linked, cosmically connected, for, as Thomas Berry has said, "Nothing can be itself without everything else."

The ramifications of this kind of spirituality for the WORLDS of nature and human society are obvious.  If every being somehow carries the divine, (the Cosmic Christ in the Franciscan tradition), every being is basically sacred.  If we truly believed this, we would change our ways, be more thought-full, walk with a lighter step, and show our love and gratitude and concern for sister thrush, brother cloud, sister water, sister star, and the rest of the family.  Such is the sometimes difficult but always life-giving challenge placed before Earth's people and, especially, those of us who are Franciscan at heart.