Infant Jesus Sisters Ireland

Emergence refers to radical newness in the story of the Universe. It is of the nature of the Universe to assemble itself, to orientate itself towards emergence, to be continuously creative. It is always transcending itself, always reaching towards the new and more complex. Especially it seems it has strived, and is still striving, towards the emergence of consciousness. How does emergence manifest itself?

There was a time when there were no atoms, then, there were atoms; a time when there were no stars, then, there were stars. There was a time when no cell, no life, no eye, no photosynthesis, no flower, no colour, no sound of birds or animals, existed. There was a long, long time on the planet when no human being existed. Just imagine how long and how laboriously the universe worked so that each new life form came into being in all its uniqueness and perfection! There were billions of years of trial and error, many extinctions, breaks-throughs and new beginnings. Emergence involves living with confusion, ignorance, groping, trial and error, wandering around, ambivalence with no clear idea of how to proceed. It involves creativity. In humans we associate creativity with hands and brains. Yet, there were no hands or no brains when life learned to harness oxygen or to fly! There was no engineer’s blueprint for the first mouth or tongue or tooth. The universe itself is creative. The first nucleus, the first living cell, the first seed, the first nerve or wing or ear, were created in situations of enormous tension, intense difficulty, when there seemed to be no way out! There seems to be an optimum moment and optimum conditions required for emergence. A star has to be a certain size, at a certain temperature, before the carbon can be formed. Once it begins to happen, carbon floods the universe. It seems that the universe, always seeking new forms, arrives at domains of emergence. Then it happens! Something new emerges!

There are great moments in this self-transcendence, birth moments, creative moments, break -through moments. We happen to be at such a great moment now in time. The Cenozoic Era which lasted 65 million years is coming to an end. It is happening partly because we have reached the stage in the development of the Universe when human beings have power to decide the future of the whole planet. It is an awesome responsibility. So far, we do not seem to have done a good job! How can we, conscious human beings, become aware of how vital our attitudes and behaviour are? What difference did/does Jesus make to evolution? The Spirit is still pushing us forward, through the power of emergence. How is it at work now? “Our Good Lord leads those things constantly and shall bring himself to them and, when it is come, we shall see it. All that is made…continues and always shall, because God loves it and in this way everything has its being by the Love of God…In this little thing I saw three characteristics: the first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it and the third that God keeps it". Julian of Norwich.