The encyclical letter Laudato Si is available here on the Vatican website. Pope Francis again cites the canticle from Colossians, the universality of Jesus and his role in all creation:
100. The New Testament does not only tell us of the earthly Jesus and his tangible and loving relationship with the world. It also shows him risen and glorious, present throughout creation by his universal Lordship: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:19-20).
We and the Lord have a mutual gaze–or perhaps a contemplation–with each other. This reflection concludes with an eminently Ignatian notion, namely to find God in all things–including the natural world.
This leads us to direct our gaze to the end of time, when the Son will deliver all things to the Father, so that “God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor 15:28). Thus, the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence.
It is not “required” to find God in nature. But others have done so. It is likely not a fruitless gaze to make.
