This is a post that I had planned to have up yesterday, but I reconsidered. It’s not the kind of thing that you put up on April 1^st and expect to be taken as seriously as you intend it.

As I was sitting in the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, I heard for only the third time some words that struck me especially strongly this year. The Exsultet or Easter Proclamation (Praeconium Paschale) was revised in English translation as far back as 2011, but I was already living in Thailand at that time. It was only during the pandemic that I moved back to Canada, so some of the changes have only been slowly absorbed by me.

The Exsultet is (rightly) most famous for the announcement of the “necessary sin of Adam,” declared a “happy fault,” for it gave us Christ our Saviour, in whose grace we have even more than the grace before the Fall. In addition, considerable stress falls, when listening to it, on the imagery of fire and the source of our spiritual experience in the first Passover when the Israelites escaped slavery in ancient Egypt. The two sets of imagery are even related, for the flame of the Pascal candle hearkens back to the fire that led the Israelites by night.

But what struck me especially this year was the passage, not about the flame of the candle, but the candle itself. I was impressed, because this passage had gone unnoticed by me in recent years and it was added (from Latin translation) only thirteen years ago:

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,
this gift from your most holy Church.

But now we know the praises of this pillar,
which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor,
a fire into many flames divided,
yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,
for it is fed by melting wax,
drawn out by mother bees
to build a torch so precious.

There are two points that stand out to me here.

First, the Pascal candle is declared “work of bees and of your servants’ hands.” This is a direct echo of the words from the Mass. During the preparation of the gifts, the host (bread) is called “fruit of the earth and work of human hands,” while the wine is called “fruit of the vine and work of human hands.” This was inserted into the Order of the Mass by Paul VI and reflects Jewish traditions, particularly regarding the Passover. (The Mishnah document on blessings uses the word “fruit of the vine” to refer to the wine.) Here, in the Exsultet, the Paschal candle is treated identically.

Second, in the Exsultet the bees are called “mother.” This stands out a lot. For one thing, the only other use of maternal imagery in the Exsultet is in regards the Church: “Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice…” It’s a surprising parallel. But even more interestingly, I find connections to Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of Creatures and Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’. Sings the saint: “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth…” And writes the Holy Father: “our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us” (LS 1).

There is no lack of Catholics who bristle at the title “Sister, Mother Earth.” Indeed, last year, a very internet-famous bishop took to writing an article chiding us about calling the Earth our mother, proclaiming that the name “Sister” is to be stressed more than, not equally to, that of “Mother.”

Difficulties with the maternal title do not make any sense to me. The Earth is our sister because it is also a creature, and it is our mother, because we derive from it.

Biblical spirituality seems to me clear. In Genesis 2:7, we read: “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” That is, the earth is mother in a remote sense, but God is our father in a more immediate sense. Makes sense to me. Meanwhile, Job says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there” (1:21)—and taking the second half of this sentence to inform the first, Job is clearly saying that the earth is our mother. This is biblical spirituality, if not incontestable Judeo-Christian theology.

Indigenous Catholic spirituality also seems to me clear. One of my favourite prayer cards has this prayer of Nicholas Black Elk (excerpt here):

Grandfather, all over the world
the faces of the living ones are alike.
In tenderness they have come up
out of the ground.
Look upon your children
with children in their arms,
that they may face the winds,
and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

God is our Father, but when Earth, also created by him (and thus our Sister), is thought of as Mother, then God is also our Grandfather.

At any rate, I’m not sure how objections to “Sister, Mother Earth” hold weight when bees are called “mother” in the most sacred liturgy that Mother Church has. The Exsultet is plainly an “eco-spirituality” liturgy, rather like the preparation of the gifts during Mass.

Indeed, regarding the Exsultet, Pope Benedict XVI’s last Easter Vigil homily (2012) adopted an eco-spirituality viewpoint:

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

In the background of this eco-spirituality reading of the liturgy is the fact that the Church and the bees are the only bearers of maternal imagery in the Exsultet, and Pope Benedict has, I think, capitalized on that association as well at the end of the quoted passage. Things tie together very nicely when you add that piece in to his intricate puzzle.

… So, there I was contemplating God as creator of the universe, and the fragile nature of all that—for we all know the precarious situation of bees—during the Easter Vigil. It was the eighth work of mercy, of course. And it asks for a response in terms, not just of prayer, but also action.

With that in mind, I want to continue focusing on “contemplation in the mud of the earth” during this coming month, at least in part—including the temporary green–brown colour scheme. It is, after all, Earth Month. Aside from Lent and the Season of Creation (September 1^st–October 4^th), there really is no more appropriate time for these thoughts, concerns, contemplative loci, habit-formations, and actions.

Happy Easter, Christ is risen!