An Astonishing Secret, The Love Story of Creation and the Wonder of You By Daniel O'Leary

Recommendation from Sister Isabel Smyth SND, Chair of the BCOS Scottish Working Group on Religion and Belief Relations

Daniel O’ Leary is an engaging, inspiring and challenging writer. In An Astonishing Secret he reflects on Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment, drawing us in to the realities of the environmental crisis that we all face and revealing new approaches to the theology of creation and the human person as reflected in the encyclical and contemporary understandings of cosmology.  

The book is organised around 49 reflections, each one beginning with a short extract from Laudato Si, followed by a reflection and what Fr O’Leary calls A Further Word. The reflections help us get to the heart of an encyclical which, like all papal documents, can be wordy and difficult to read.  Yet this is an encyclical that has been acknowledged by both the religious and secular world as an important contribution to the challenge of climate change and environmental well-being. But is it one known to the Catholic community? This book gives easy access to its message.

Behind the message of care for the environment is a theology of creation that O’Leary explores in a Further Word. This is a theology that recognises a less known tradition within the Church that all creation, including the creation of human beings, is good; that God’s gift of life has evolved over eons; that original sin has not alienated human beings from God but is a reflection of a tendency to self – determination which forgets that we humans are creatures and intimately connected with creation.

 Laudato Si offers a vision of creation that emphasises our interrelatedness to all of creation. It calls for a conversion of heart that opens our minds and hearts to see creation and our place within it with new eyes, to feel the pain of what we are doing to the environment and to commit to caring and preserving it in any way we can.

Lent is a time and opportunity for conversion and An Astonishing Secret offers this possibility. It is very readable. Its short chapters would fit into a daily Lenten practice of prayer and reflection and it would benefit from group discussion. The journey that Daniel O’Leary takes us on in this book is a spiritual one that gives meaning to what we now know of cosmology and gives us hope for the future, particularly at this moment when the Corona virus has revealed our lack of harmony and insecurity in a fragile world. I would recommend it highly. It does what the introduction promises – it gives thought-provoking insights that will provide delightful new glimpses to enrich, renew and deepen what it means for us to be Christian, Catholic and human.

Isabel Smyth SND