II.Second Use . . . 

          A possible process is dialoguing with the common experience of existence, sense-of-being-a-creature, and creaturehood. These become the initial items for dialogue between scientists and theologians.

Existence:
          Possibly the topic for dialogue for scientists and theologians and all persons, for that matter, can begin with the experience of existence. Then the dialogue might move to the experience of being a creature or that of creaturehood. Different experiences can apply to scientists, theologians and the rest of humanity. The experience of existence and being sustained in existence applies to all three groups. The experience of being a creature applies to theologians and all who believe in a creator. The experience of creaturehood is a spiritual experience. It applies to those who believe in a personal Creator. For creaturehood indicates a sense of personal relationship in that one senses being brought into existence and being sustained in existence through one's relationship with a personal Creator.

          Everyone can admit the experiences of existence through the various activities of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and bodily experiences of pleasure and pain. The experiences of tiredness and energy are examples of this. The experience of gravity is one of these as happens when falling or lifting objects. The sense of a sudden drop in altitude when flying also brings this home to us. Times of fright and fear of an unknown future are experiences of existence. What are some experiences of existence? Actual scary experience like death dealing accidents,⁽³¹⁾ dreams, nightmares, science-fiction movies, in aeroplanes, looking into a volcano, natural events, etc.

          Our existence has always been a conundrum for natural scientists. Some do not want to posit a creator of everything. Yet, they realize that there was a time when the universe as we know it did not exist. So they have a number of theories to explain the existence of the universe. For example, it is eternal and infinite or it is an expression of God (pantheism) or it is pure energy out of which humans and other living creatures on earth have evolved. Up until the late 1890's scientists approached the universe as a great machine. Everything was made of inanimate particles and the animate elements of our universe were the result of electrons interacting in atoms and molecules. They did not concern themselves with the existence of a life force separate as it were from the material particles. This persists today in the description of DNA as an inanimate, chemical composition. The existence of life in plants, animals and humans has presented an even greater puzzle to scientists who do not believe in a living creator of all. Many scientists will admit to a creator of all things at the beginning of the universe. But this creator has no more connection with creatures or creation. This approach to a creator of it all is known as Deism. James Honner writes about this in a comment on Paul Davies' great designer God: "Davies' God, however, is no different from the impersonal and distant God of the deists. Like William Paley or Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, Davies sees God as not only uninvolved in the universe, but even as unable to be involved."⁽³²⁾
 

Sense-of-Being-a-Creature:
          That the sense-of-being a creature is different from that of existence can be understood in different ways. One might be given an objective knowledge of being creature. The objective knowledge takes place from a consideration of my own being from "outside myself" as it were, concerning the way in which I have been created and sustained in life. This objective sense of being a creature can also come from my observance of all other creatures. I see their contingency--even the stars die. This objective knowledge is the topic of many sacred texts and the writings of many natural scientists.

          The main difference between the sense-of-being a creature and that of existence involves belief in a creator and as such applies to all who believe in a creator. The sense of contingency in being a creature is experienced as an ongoing activity of a creator beyond oneself, whether from the creative energy in the universe of some other unseen power. Such experiences can be the basis for our images of God. For example, they can stir up in us images of God as a benign force for the benefit of humans or as an evil force that is destructive to humans.

          Keeping in mind that the sense-of-being a creature implies the existence of a creator means we can understand our experience of being a creature in different ways. We can appreciate our experience from outside-in, that is, into ourselves or from inside-out as within ourselves. Teilhard de Chardin states that all things have a withinness in their being. This is expressed by Whitehead, et al, as subjectivity in all things.⁽³³⁾ An awareness of exterior things comes from a consideration of life "outside myself," as it were. I see the fragility and contingency of other beings and I consider my own sense of being created and sustained in life. This sense of being a creature can come from my observation of all other creatures. I see their contingency-even the stars die. This knowledge of things outside ourselves is the topic of many sacred texts and the writings of many natural scientists. We also recognize the experience of life around us. Life is quite different from the physical and chemical existence of molecules, atoms, and minute quanta.

Creaturehood:
          We have some immediate, unreflective experiences of existence. These can be the beginning of a reflective process in which we realize our temporality and the tenuousness of life and seek the meaning of life. Upon reflection we come to recognize ourselves as creatures of a creator. As we question further we might ask, "Is this creator a person?" We might reason: "If we are persons then there is a personal creator." Or we might turn to the wisdom of our ancestors and their inspired sacred writings that proclaim the presence of a personal creator. When we acknowledge that the creator is a person and has a personal relationship to us our experience of being creature becomes one of creaturehood.

          The sense of creaturehood is similar to that of being a creature except that the person is able to understand these in terms of one's relationship to God as a personal Creator. This understanding actually changes the experience and can bring to it a sense of the personal presence of the godhead in the experience itself.

          In connecting our experience of contingency with belief in God, James Mackey writes, "In the experience of our own contingency we can be drawn, or driven, to affirm a ground of our being. At the root of all faith, forming part of its definition, is the acknowledgment of a power that sustains our existence in all the concrete circumstance of human living. The sense of contingency, in whatever form it strikes home to us, is really a grace--an invitation to see [our] world and [our] present history [as] grounded in a being [we] call God and relate to as such."⁽³⁴⁾

          But the sense of creaturehood goes beyond that of the sense-of-being-a- -creature. Being a creature from a theological viewpoint is part of an understanding of God's relationship to the universe and its various aspects. However, a Christian theology builds on the revelation of the godhead as a Trinity of persons in relation to the universe and humanity. Spirituality refers to the ways in which we understand our lives in terms of the revelation of the Trinity and the various affective responses of the Trinity relating to us as human creatures individually and communally. Sheldrake makes a telling point about a personal relationship with God and the universe. He writes:

It is hard to feel a sense of gratitude for an inanimate, mechanical world proceeding inexorably in accordance with eternal laws of nature and blind chance. And this is a great spiritual loss, for it is through gratitude that we acknowledge the living powers on which our own lives depend; through gratitude we enter into a conscious relationship to them; through gratitude we can find ourselves in a state of grace.⁽³⁵⁾

          The spiritual experience of creaturehood can be considered as the primordial spiritual experience of humans.⁽³⁶⁾ It is more than the experience of existence or of being a creature because one is given a sense of personal relationship with the godhead in the experience of creaturehood. Thus, the experience of limitedness and dependency, fragility and contingency is known in terms of personal relationship founded on one's interior faith perspective. With much reflection on one's interior spiritual experience of creaturehood a person can grow in deep awareness of the giftedness of our lives and respond to the Creator in wonder, gratitude, humility and love.

          When I acknowledge that the Creator is a person or trinity of persons I have entered the spiritual sphere and my awareness of being creature becomes the spiritual experience of creaturehood. This awareness is probably the most primordial and common of interior spiritual experiences. It is the common basis for all spiritual experiences. When I reflect on my own experience of creaturehood I may recognize the transcendent component in the experience. Such transcendent experiences carry me beyond my everyday, sensational life to the Creator of all. I am taken out of myself. When this happens I have entered into the realm of mystery, that is, the mystery of my relationship with the person of the godhead, with the persons of Trinity. It is from this personal component of the basic spiritual experience of creaturehood that the many other spiritual experiences with the Trinity, Jesus Christ and the Communion of Saints arise.

          When we are attentive to our experiences of contingency, etc, and reflect on our experience of creaturehood, seeking to know its meaning we are growing in understanding of the god-dimension in our lives. When this knowledge moves us to the love of God as Ignatius describes it we have an experience of spiritual consolation. Here is his description of spiritual consolation:

Rule 3. On Spiritual Consolation: I use the word 'consolation' when any interior movement is produced in the soul that leads her to become inflamed with the love of her Creator and Lord, and when, as a consequence, there is no created thing on the face of the earth that we can love in itself. But we love it only in the Creator of all things. Similarly, I use the word 'consolation' when one shed tears that lead to love of one's Lord, whether these arise from grief over one's sins, or over the Passion of Christ Our Lord, or over other things expressly directed towards His service and praise. Lastly, I give the name 'consolation' to every increase of hope, faith, and charity, to all interior happiness that calls and attracts a person towards heavenly things and to the soul's salvation, leaving the soul quiet and at peace in the Creator and Lord.⁽³⁷⁾

          There can be confusion in such subject-to-subject understanding. Lonergan was aware of the confusion between the topics of subject, self, perception and consciousness. Joann and Walter Conn discuss this in an article on "Self. " They write:

"Lonergan saw the difficulty of psychologists on the self as rooted in a failure to understand the precise nature of conscious subjective as both cognitive and constitutive. ... This meaning of "I" is rooted in an understanding of consciousness as the self's constitutive presence to itself which has proved so elusive. ... the self is aware of, is present to, or experiences, itself operating. Such operatings do not only intend object, then, but also render the operating self conscious. ...they simultaneously make the operating person present to itself--make it a self. ... In this case, a person is simultaneously present to self in two different ways: as subject (an "I") by consciousness, and an object (a "me") by the intentionality of the reflective act. Consciousness, according to Lonergan's distinctive theory, not only reveals the self-as-subject but also constitutes it as such."⁽³⁸⁾

          The three persons of the Trinity are a dynamic community in their inner life and exterior life.⁽⁴⁰⁾ While we might attribute creation to the Father as the Creed says, yet all three persons are involved in the creative act and this includes all of the universe in a creative, new expression of all things. This is expressed in scripture: "In the beginning was the Word, ... All things were made through him."(Jn 1:1-2);

"for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him." (Col 1:16-22).

          When we consider creaturehood as a spiritual experience a question arises, "What is spirituality?" Spirituality is dependent on the interior awareness of interpersonal relationships whether about espirit de corps or with plants, animals, humans and stars in the cosmos. Today we have an expanded sense of community that includes all creatures. We are lead to appreciate the spiritual truth that "we are saved as a people, as a planet." Interconnectedness and interdependence and intercommunication with the sacred, the interpersonal sense of life is important for all expressions of spirituality. Thomas Berry, the advocate of deep concern for the earth points out, "This arc of communion with the earth we can relearn from the Indian. Thus a reverse dependency is established…In some ultimate sense we need their mythic capacity for relating to this continent more than they need our mechanistic exploitation of the continent.⁽⁴¹⁾

          For Christians, spirituality is about interpersonal relationship with the persons of the Trinity in whatever way that gets expressed. It is my contention that both science and religion can bring insight that will help in the present affective experiences of the spiritual life of individuals and communities.

          St. Paul says that spirituality is about the activity of the Spirit in all things: "But, as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love'-these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God…And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual."(1 Cor 2:10,13) Spirituality is about the activity of the Spirit in our interpersonal life, our prayerful relationship with the Trinity, Our Lady, the Saints, and the interpersonal in the universe. It gives us an interpersonal overarching matrix of understanding, our motivations and choices in life. It develops a reflective knowledge of our human experiences, such as creaturehood, in terms of God's interpersonal relationship with us.

          For Christians this is expressed in the first statement of its Creed: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, The Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible." Form this belief one is brought to a realization of one's existence by the personal activity of God, the Trinity. One acknowledges relationship to all other beings as fellow creatures even as kin. And the experience of being a creature goes beyond one's individual sense of existence. There is a further experience of creaturehood that is one's sense of relationship with other creatures and with the Trinity. We are not alone in this experience of being a creature. We are in communion with the rest of the created universe. All other beings are our kin. We are together in the dance of the Trinity. We are part of the community of the Trinity.

          The understanding and sense of our creaturehood can be a basis for entering into the mysteries of our faith and the mystery of our own life. So we realize that the historical events of Christ's life and our own present historical state express an experience of creaturehood (See Ph 2:6-11).Our own acts of wonder, awe, sorrow and repentance make the action of Christ present to us through the mysterious way of his Ascension⁽⁴²⁾ somewhat as the remembrance at the Eucharist makes the Last Supper present to us.

Creaturehood In The Spiritual Exercises Of St. Ignatius Loyola⁽⁴³⁾
          I now shift to the instructions of Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. He was a master of the spiritual life. He is noted for his own mystical experiences and for the small book of instructions to help others in their relationship with God. He was also one to observe the heavens as a way of appreciating the handy-work of the Creator. We have this account of his reminiscences "And the greatest consolation he used to receive was to look at the sky and the stars, which he did often and for a long time, because with this he used to feel in himself a great impetus towards serving Our Lord."⁽⁴⁴⁾

          The sense of creaturehood is first presented by Ignatius in the"First Principle and Foundation" of the Spiritual Exercises. In the first sentence of this statement he writes: "The human person is created to praise, reverence and serve God Our Lord, and by so doing to save his or her soul." (SP EX [23])⁽⁴⁵⁾

          Ignatius saw life as the continual creative personal presence of the Trinity coming to us through our Creator and Lord. "Creator and Lord" is probably Jesus Christ for Ignatius. In fact he refers to Christ as Our Creator and Lord in many places in the Exercises, for example, [5, 15, 16, 50, 52,  229#7, 317, 351]. As mentioned above, this agrees with St. John's gospel and St. Paul in particular in Jn 1:1-18 and Col 1:15-20.

          Here is a modern rendition of Ignatius' First Principle and Foundation:

As a response to the overflowing love of the Trinity we humans in kinship with all other things of the universe are created to praise, reverence and serve the Trinity in all our life endeavours and so discover the fullness of our lives on earth, here and hereafter. In our praise, reverence and service of the Trinity we realize a new awareness of connectedness and relationship with all the rest of nature and the need to develop a free loving attitude even as we use them for our livelihood in all that is left to our free will and is not prohibited.This requires true spiritual freedom on our part. This is the basic attitude toward all of the community of life and is necessary for true love. Such freedom extends to our relationship with everything. So we need to find this freedom in order to develop a right relationship with all creation: human, animal, plants, matter. This gives us the freedom necessary to live with honour or disgrace, in poverty or riches, with a long or short life, in sickness or in health and so of all other matters. Our one desire is to choose what will better help us praise reverence and serve the Three Divine Persons.⁽⁴⁶⁾

          The method of prayer for this "First Principle and Foundation" is a consideration. At the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius lists a series of methods of prayer: "The term 'spiritual exercises' denotes every way of examining one's conscience, of meditating, contemplating, praying vocally and mentally, and other spiritual activities. ... {It} is the name given to every way of preparing and disposing one's soul to rid herself of all disordered attachments, so that once rid of them one might seek and find the divine will in regard to the disposition of one's life for the good of the soul". (SP EX [1] ) One might suggest that meditation, strictly speaking is an activity of the mind trying to find meaning and understanding in the many experiences of life and contemplation is the activity of bringing into one's being a personal experience of God. Both of these methods are designed to give us a deep sense of ourselves before God.

          Consideration is not exactly the same as a meditation or a contemplation in the Ignatian sense. By consideration commentators mean that the one making the Exercises is to read and ponder the text often at the beginning of the Full Exercises. It presents the purpose of human life as creatures before God and the ways to attain this. It puts one into the presence of the Trinity. So it is reasonable to approach it as material for consideration constantly pondering, reading, seeking to appreciate it as a basic truth, applying it to oneself, praying for the generosity to use the statement in all the decisions of one's life. Another way to consider the "First Principle and Foundation" is by reading, pondering and praying with scriptural texts that support Ignatius statement. Some good texts for this are: Ps 8, Ps 139, Eph 1:3-14, Col 1:15-20.

          From our perspective such considerations, while good in themselves, do not necessarily give the one praying a sense of creaturehood as we have explained it under the subtitle of Creaturehood. For it is possible to consider oneself as creature before God, the Creator, from an objective or "head" position. This helps us to accept the mystery of our existence and even that of the universe. But such understanding is not the same as a "heart" or subjective understanding. A heart awareness requires a certain surrender of self and a perspective of wonder at one's existence. It means that one comes to prayer on this matter as a mystery, the mystery of oneself before the Creator.

          The first principle and foundation of our purpose and goal in life is founded on the fact that we are creatures of a benevolent Creator. It's insistence on the need for freedom (indifference) as we relate to other creatures requires that we recognize our interdependence and connectedness with the rest of creation. Ignatius statement about indifference as we relate and use creatures must now be understood as the need for freedom and appreciation in the use of all other creatures as they sustain and companion us in life.⁽⁴⁷⁾ The new appreciation of our connectedness with other creatures in the universe leaves no doubt about the need for spiritual freedom and becomes an assist for someone praying the First Principle and Foundation. The need for such freedom hints at the fact of our creaturehood, our inadequacy in fulfilling the end for which we are created; freedom that involves the correct relationship with all the creatures of the earth and is repulsed by the abuse of our companions on the way to union with God. We seek an awareness of our connectedness with other creatures in order to praise, reverence and serve the Trinity in all things. The "First Principle and Foundation" calls us to a level of desire for our life enterprise and humility in our relationship with our Creator.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Later in the actual "Spiritual Exercises" Ignatius gives a number of ways of discerning the will of God as we make decisions in accordance with the "First Principle and Foundation."

          As we proceed to consider the First Principle and Foundation we are brought to our relationship with other creatures of the universe and the full sense of freedom that we need as we use and relate to them. A basic position of St. Ignatius was that God is present at all times and in all things. (Cf. SP EX [235]) With spiritual freedom we are able to relate to other beings in a subjective rather than an objective manner. The relationship becomes affective or loving. We are to be loving companions as we relate and use other creatures for their salvation as well as our own. St. Paul indicates this in Romans 8:19-23. We are brought to a sense of connectedness and dependency on all the other creatures of the universe. If, as Sheldrake and others believe, the stars and galaxies are like angels and have a consciousness, then we can acknowledge our connectedness and dependency on them as we might with animal pets.⁽⁴⁹⁾

          Early Christian doctrine saw a closer relationship between creation and salvation than was later envisioned. Created reality never exists without its actual ordering to grace and salvation. The creative act of Christ extends to all humanity and even reaches the cosmic realm as indicated in Colossians 1 and Romans 8. (See also Job (38-39) and Ps 104). Other created things are valued in themselves.⁽⁵⁰⁾ We are creatures of God. We know theoretically that we are and subsist because God wishes us to be.⁽⁵¹⁾ This is doctrine but from a spiritual point of view we have experiences of creaturehood, that is, there are interior movements that point to God, the Trinity, in our life experiences.⁽⁵²⁾

          The text itself goes beyond the strictly utilitarian. When considering the "First Principle and Foundation" it is good to recall that we humans are connected with and dependent on other creatures in our life experiences. Our present ecological awareness highlights this interconnectedness. We might say, "we are saved as a people, as a planet," as the quotation from Romans 8 given above suggests (p.21). While there is a tendency to pray with the "First Principle and Foundation" from an individualistic viewpoint it is helpful to realize that Ignatius was referring to "man" in a generic way and that he linked humans with other creatures. We are to approach them as companions on our journey to the Trinity. Today we need to approach the First Principle and Foundation in a more nuanced way. I have attempted to do this in my book Spiritual Freedom: Second Edition (Loyola Press, Chicago, 1995).⁽⁵³⁾

          We ought not to misconstrue the Spiritual Exercises and follow the heavy post-enlightenment (modernist) approach to spirituality as a vertical and individualistic relationship with God. This was totally out of Ignatius' ken. His whole life was communal. He realized that salvation was a communal affair and spirituality was a communal affair even though he would not express it this way. John Wickham writes about this in, "The Communal Dimension in the Spiritual Exercises Today."⁽⁵⁴⁾ Ignatius could see the Spirit of God in all creatures. He had a high regard for St. Francis of Assisi who had such a love for other creatures of the earth and wanted to emulate him.

          There are the stories of our elders, our grandparents and elders of our traditions that can become part of this prayer. The old stories from the elders in various cultures can still speak to us about creation and creaturehood. The theological myth of creation in Genesis gives us many insights about the universe and creation. And the new cosmology can give us a further appreciation of spirituality.⁽⁵⁵⁾

          When praying with our sense of creaturehood we can begin with our own experiences or with the various stories about our beginnings, for example, how order came out of chaos. Or to appreciate the order that is in the chaos.⁽⁵⁶⁾ There are also the explanations of the natural scientists. I suppose a Christian cosmologist might contemplate the Big Bang as an act of and presence of the Triune God as well as imagine it for scientific purposes and in this discover the mystery of creation anew.

          There are many ways to heighten our awareness of creaturehood. The following is a fairly extensive set of considerations, meditations and contemplations that can help us experience and appreciate our creaturehood.

^31. See my description of an experience of creaturehood in English, John, SJ.:Spiritual Freedom, From an Experience of the Ignatian Exercises to the Art of Spiritual Guidance (2^nd Edition), Loyola Press, Chicago 1995. pp. 25-26.:

^32. John Honner: "Time, God and Cosmology" in The Way, London, 2000. p.33.

^33. Haught, ibid., p. 178.

^34. Mackey, James P.: quoted under "Creation," in The New Dictionary of Theology, ibid, p. 257.

^35. Sheldrake, Rupert: THE REBIRTH OF NATURE, SCIENCE AND GOD. Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1994. p 221

^36. For a full study of this the reader might read Jean Mouroux: The Christian Experience, London, Sheed and Ward, 1952.

^37. See Munitz, Joseph and Endean Philip: Saint Ignatius Loyola, Personal Writings: Penguin Books, London, 1996. Pp. 348-9.

^38. Conn, Joann Wolski and Conn, Walter E: sum this up in "Self" The New Dictionary of Theology of Catholic Spirituality, ibid. p.872.

^39. Carroll, Dennis, "Creation" in The New Dictionary of Theology, p. 255.

^40. See O'Donnell, Mystery of Triune God, references to Whitehead, Rahner, pp.6-7. Also Hayes, Zachary, OFM: Creatio ex nihilo, "designates the movement from non-existence into existence through the creative action of God." The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, p. 238.

^41. Berry, Thomas: The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990. p.190

^42. The following explanation of Rahner on the ascension can give us insight into the presence of Christ's mysteries to us when we contemplate. "The love of the Father seizes the totality of His concrete human experience - including his body. The whole Christ with His whole destiny and everything He experienced and suffered on earth with His human nature has now entered into the glory of the Father. Jesus has not lost a thing. He has not only saved His physical being intact but everything has remained present." Rahner, Karl, SJ: The Spiritual Exercises, Herder and Herder, NY, 1956. "The Ascension," p. 245

^43. I will be using the translation of Munitz, Joseph, A. and Endean, Philip: SAINT IGNATIUS LOYOLA, Personal Writings, Penguin Books, London. 1996.

^44. Ignatius wrote about this in REMINISCENCES an Autobiography of Ignatius Loyola, as heard and written down by LUIS Goncalves Da Camar, in Munitz and Endean, Idem, [11]:p. 16.

^45. 35. Munitz and Endean, Idem, p. 289.

^46. 37. A more literal version of the Principle and Foundation follows:

The human person is created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord, and by doing so to save his or her soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created. It follows from this that one must use other created things in so far as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them in so far as they are obstacles to one's end. To do this we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, provided the matter is subject to our free choice and there is no prohibition. Thus as far as we are concerned, we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created.

^47. There is a tradition among indigenous people to carry on a conversation with animals before they kill for food, a conversation seeking forgiveness from and expressing gratitude to the animal.

^48. 38. An intimate sense of creaturehood can be attained by using the experiences of creaturehood as the subject of prayer with one's life as part of the "Story of One's Life as an Experience of Graced History." See my Choosing Life and Chapter 17 of the 2^nd edition of Spiritual Freedom

^49. See Sheldrake, "Maybe Angels" Idem

^50. See "Creation" in ND Cath Sp. Pp 239-40

^51. See Conn Wolski, Joan, in LaCugna: Freeing Theology, Harper, San Francisco, 1993.p.237 and "Self" in New Dicitionary of Catholic Spirituality, Collegeville, MN. pp865-6

^52. See O'Donnell, Mystery of Triune God, references to Whitehead, Rahner, pp.6-7. Also Hayes, Zachary, OFM: Creatio ex nihilo, "designates the movement from nonexistence into existence through the creative action of God." The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, p.238.

^53. See my Spiritual Freedom, pp 23-42.

^54. Wickham, John, SJ: "The Communal Dimension in the Spiritual Exercises Today." Review for Religious. St Louis, 1991, pp. 75-84.

^55. See Sheldrake, Rupert, in Chaos, Consciousness and Creative Cosmos by Sheldrake, McKenna, Abrahams, Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 2001. p.54-55.

^56. See McKenna, Terence, Ibid p.7.