Helping to bring Pope Francis’s encyclical to life in our community
From the Diocese of Syracuse “Care for Our Common Home” Task Force
Our relationship to God’s Creation
By Elizabeth Fleury
Contributing writer
“The ecological crisis is a summons to profound interior conversion … an ecological conversion whereby the effects of [our] encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in [our] relationship with the world around [us]. Living as protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience (LS, 217).
Pope Francis reminded us in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’ (On Care For Our Common Home), that Creation is calling out and we must attend to the wounds of the earth to build the world we want for a better future. Younger generations watching the ecological crisis wonder what their future holds.
“There are no winners in a world where climate change gets worse,” says Alex Kamins of Moody’s Analytics. Everyone loses out because we all rely on goods and services from other states and other countries. Mother Earth is struggling and exhausted. How will we protect future generations and nurture those who will carry on our work? A new way of thinking is needed. We must envision the accumulating effect of doing good work.
When we believe that all of Creation is sacred, we feel our kinship with the earth and its peoples. When we listen to the voices of those affected by natural disasters, drought and heat, we recognize our responsibility to help citizens of the world live well with the earth and one another. When we accept the task of making this world a little more hospitable to the beauty of Creation, as Bishop Desmond Tutu encouraged us, our lives become more abundant and our hearts fill with love.
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate,” affirms Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY-ESF. “But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.” This beautifully articulated vision of environmental stewardship, grounded in scientific and indigenous knowledge, invites us deeper into God’s Creation. Looking at the world with grateful eyes and a grateful heart helps us cultivate a respect for natural balance, an attitude of living “with” the land in reciprocity and delighting in God’s spirit around us.
Similarly, Sister Linda Neil, CSJ, shared “The Beatitudes of Bliss“ at a recent retreat at Christ the King Retreat House, explaining that when we fill our hearts with gratitude, let nature heal us, consciously reside in beauty and give ourselves over to awe, a spiritual transformation can occur.
Sr. Linda also invited us to live in “right relationship” with a suffering Mother Earth and consider our charitable actions (e.g., corporal works of mercy) from an environmental perspective like nature-loving St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi. Committed to the earth and its people, they believed that the entire beautiful world was a sacrament revealing the presence of God. When we encounter nature as a sacrament, we then choose to live simply and with integrity.
So how will we live out our responsibility to care for God’s creation? How can we transform our justice work to respond to the needs of people who are poor and most at risk from environmental problems?
In 2022, when Pope Francis launched a seven-year action plan to implement environmental sustainability across various sectors of the Church, he said, “We can all collaborate, each one with his own culture and experience, each one with her own initiatives and capacities, so that our mother Earth may be restored to her original beauty, and creation may once again shine according to God’s plan.”
Holiness is made around ordinary everyday people and things. May we be inspired to act, work and give for the sake of God’s Creation.
