A Sacrament of Awe

by Sister Eileen Ripsin

May 2024

It was much colder than we had anticipated one day in mid-March but that did not slow our resolve as we entered the Manhattan Marsh Preserve. My companion and I were on the fifth in a series of adventures created to provide full-sensed experiences through nature, music, and the arts. In the marsh, our hope was to find music in nature and allow for moments of awe, wonder and calm. Our adventure began as we walked slowly down the boardwalk, deep into the marsh, where we tuned to the sounds of birds, ducks and the whoosh and wild splash of geese-wings flapping against the surface of the marsh.

We felt and heard the wind as it danced around and over us, shivering and grateful we were dressed in layers. Our promise to remain hushed helped guide our entry into an encounter with creation and remain open to being “awe-struck” in wonder and beauty. This adventure was an alternative to an in-office counseling session and for this Franciscan, an awe-filled, sacred encounter with Holy Mystery, a loving God present in all of creation and an awe-inspired movement into contemplation; there in the marsh, with the geese, birds, ducks, and wind. “Awe is the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries we cannot understand.”

Growing research from emotion science, brain studies, neuroscience, and contributions from decades of data from Forest Bathing/Nature Therapy, Mindfulness practices and the wisdom of sacred texts from spiritual traditions across the ages, all support the notion that experiencing moments of awe and wonder is essential for wellbeing. Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC, Berkeley, and director of the Greater Good Science Center, explores the science of awe in his 2023 book AWE – The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life. Keltner proposes that cultivating awe increases our relational capacity and promotes health on all levels. Keltner and colleagues reviewed several spiritual and symbolic traditions and noticed “a clear motif emerges: our individual self gives way to the boundary[1]dissolving sense of being part of something much larger.” “Awe” he states, “is the feeling we experience when we encounter vast mysteries we cannot understand.” This, he proposes, helps reduce worry and loneliness while increasing vitality and a sense of hope and belonging.

In the 1982 Commentary on the Franciscan Third Order Regular Rule on The Spirit of Prayer, Margaret Carney, OSF and Thadeus Horgan, SA remind us that neither Clare nor Francis offered a complicated prayer method but called their followers to “prayer with a decidedly contemplative dimension – to be present to God Who is present to all creatures in prayer…” “The created world is the expression of God’s goodness and the theater of God’s redemptive love for us.” Whether in a marsh, a chapel, on the shore, gazing at moon-lit treetops, pondering new blossoms in spring, or encountering the vast mysteries of life with all its complexities, pains, and struggles, Franciscans become immersed. In daily prayer, with words or in awe-infused silence, we know all of creation “is an expression of God’s goodness and the theater of God’s redemptive love for us” and so, consciously, attentively seek “immersion in its sacramental reality.” Being truly present in the suffering and loneliness of another, in the brokenness and groans of the earth, we find moments of awe, from which we “give God ceaseless praise and thanksgiving for all God has done and does in creation and in our re[1]creation in Christ.” Through daily prayer, with words or in awe-inspired silence, we know all of creation “is an expression of God’s goodness and the theater of God’s redemptive love for us” and so, consciously, attentively seek “immersion in its sacramental reality.”