Delio: Co-Creating an Unfinished Universe

Ilia Delio can rock the cynics. In fact she did much more than that to the more than 200 people attending the Association of Pittsburgh Priests’ Spring Lecture last month.

After a whirlwind tour of history from the big bang through the evolution of Homo Sapiens, she walked us through the scientific history that shaped the worldviews in the Ages of Ptolemy, Copernicus, St. Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Newton and Descartes. The latter two, credited with much of today’s scientific and mechanical definitions, also contributed to separating us from our natural environment.

The Franciscan nun, who holds Ph.Ds in both Science and Theology, showed how the possibilities of Einstein’s breakthroughs can help us better understand God, the Incarnation of the Word, the Cosmos, the environment, ourselves and our relationships.

Her message that we are still evolving, calls us to move from “closed systems of rules and hierarchies” to “open systems of love.” She analogizes “God’s love” to Einstein’s discussion of “ever present energy” and the “power of gravity” to powerful love pulling us, still evolving, ever closer to God. We are, she says, “co-creators of an unfinished universe.”

She says the very name God is a cosmological notion and calls on us to change our relationship to the whole of the environment. In fact she says the original Greek word for “catholicity” is a “consciousness of the whole” and “church” or “ecclesia” is a “gathering of us ‘into the whole.’”

There is a famous quote, “if you are not confused by Einstein, then you didn’t understand”. It is a little like that with Delio. I didn’t understand everything in just a two-hour lecture, but I left with a sense of wonder and awe, wanting to know much, much more.

If readers would like to get a DVD of the talk, contact Joyce Rothermel at rothermeljoyce@gmail.com It is available for a low cost plus postage.

Stay tuned for the fall lecture series of the Association of Pittsburgh Priests. It begins with Tony Norman on Sept. 22 on “Faith, Fear, and Following Your Conscience in Voting.” On Oct. 27 Jame Schaeffer will speak on the environment. Finally, on Dec. 5 Tina Whitehead will talk about life in a Palestinian Refugee Camp. All the fall talks begin at 7 PM and are held at the Kearns Spirituality Center in Allison Park.

Jim McCarville is a Board Member of the Thomas Merton Center and serves on the Editorial Collective of The NewPeople.

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