Refer to the “Holy Land”, by Timothy J. Cullen, in the Remnant, November 25, 2012, pp.11-12.
Mr. Cullen is more of a Catholic creationist, probably, than he realizes, when he calls, as did Holy Ghost Father Denis Fahey, many years ago in The Church and Farming, for Catholics to return to the land. In fact, everything presupposes creation and especially resonant of the original days of Creation Week is the nature of the land, of the earth, out of which, literally, God formed all other corporeal beings except the celestial bodies of Day Four. But notice, not only is the land and earth man’s special place over which he has been given dominion, (Gen.1:26), but far more intimately connected with his very nature, his body part is from the slime of the earth (Gen.2:7) – which indicates the predominant necessity in the human composite for water, perhaps even more so than in other living creatures.
But please, come with me just for a moment to Genesis One and examine just what God tells us He did on Day One. Please don’t pass out in horror! I am not a deluded, fanatical "fundamentalist”,unless you will also include St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory (all of them! – all of the Gregory’s). St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, et alia; for I am a Traditionalist in the fullest sense, following the great teachers of the Church from the beginning. So please allow me to point out some indications that I suggest God tells us He created on Day One.
Genesis One tells us that on Day One God created the Heavens and the Earth. And the earth was covered with water. This plainly is a revealing of the greater part of the entire inanimate domain of matter. But the earth was enveloped in darkness and so very quickly (probably instantaneously), God said “Let there be light” and light was made. Here in these first three verses of Genesis One is almost all of Catholic cosmology. And the point I wish to make about the land and it’s intrinsic, essential goodness, even “holiness” – is the fact that God used the inanimate elements of earth to form all the living creatures, and for man, it seems, an abundance of water, because in Genesis 2:7, God specifies that He made man, not only first of all in His own Image and Likeness, specifying most particularly man’s soul, but from “the slime of the earth” – He formed his bodily substance.
So the land of earth is very special for us humans, not only as having been given the stewardship of dominion over it (Gen.1:26) –but also, and more intimately, as being the very constituent of our bodily nature. No wonder we have an almost innate love for this land of ours, what becomes in time the patria – the homeland – the fatherland or motherland of nations and the true basis of all patriotism.
These are just a few of the thoughts brought about in me by reading the article of Mr. Cullen on “The Holy Land.”