WCC students get to take a hunter safety course with our fantastic Game and Fish Commission team. Recently, the College asked me to give a talk that would tie the hunter education component in with the students’ Catholic faith.
Really? Hunting and Catholicism? As a matter of fact, I took the Game and Fish course a couple of years ago, and I found to my surprise that it did connect with my Christian faith. Hunting as the G&F understands it is about enjoyment and bringing home food, but it’s also about taking care of our wilderness areas. It’s about managing herds, connecting with our neighbors in the wild, and finding out about disease and other conditions that might affect the animals. In other words, hunting is part of the stewardship of creation described in Genesis 1.
For my talk, however, I turned to another biblical text, Psalm 8. You can download an audio recording of my talk here, or you can listen with the audio player below. (I have no idea how the audio player will come through for those of you receiving the blog post by e-mail.)
For reference, here is the text of Psalm 8:
PSALM 8
How great is your name, O Lord our God,
through all the earth!
Your majesty is praised above the heavens;
on the lips of children and of babes
you have found praise to foil your enemy,
to silence the foe and the rebel.
When I see the heavens, the work of your hands,
the moon and the stars which you arranged,
what is man that you should keep him in mind,
mortal man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him little less than a god;
with glory and honor you crowned him,
gave him power over the works of your hand,
put all things under his feet.
All of them, sheep and cattle,
yes, even the savage beasts,
birds of the air, and fish
that make their way through the waters.
How great is your name, O Lord our God,
through all the earth!
