In paragraph 27-31, Pope Francis begins to explore the issue of disappearing natural resources, especially clean water, He explores the consequences of lack of clean water in developing countries(deaths, spread of diseases, impacts on the agriculture, higher infant mortality etc,..)and the impact the mining industry and the market economy (among other things) may have on whatever access to clean water these countries may have.

Today's entry comes to use from  Reverend Jean-Daniel Williams, an Anglican and United Christian Chaplain at McGill University in Montreal, a PhD student of practical theology at the Université de Montréal, and the father of two lovely daughters who he hopes will grow up in a world of plentiful and shared clean water.

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Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si' 30

But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:14

There are two simple, paradoxical facts about water. Water is ordinary, and water is holy.

Water is ordinary. For so many of us it exists in such bounty, with such ease of access, that we seldom consider that for so many others it is scarce. But even for those for whom water is scarce and access difficult, water is a daily fact of life. It is indeed the universal—across geography, across time, across species, across even biological kingdoms—fact of life. As earthlings, we simply cannot conceive of life as we know it without this ordinary substance, this perfect molecular alignment of two hydrogen atoms with an oxygen atom. Perhaps life can exist without it, but it would be so different from our understanding of how life works, would we even recognize it? This week's discovery of water flowing on Mars is monumental in our search for the possibility of life beyond our planet. The ordinariness of water is a bit misleading, though. It can be tempting to think drinkable, fresh water is all around us because it always is near us. But that is because we can't live, for long, in the places where it is not. Our perception of water's abundance is skewed by our selection bias or sampling error of only looking around where we live, places we or our ancestors had settled in part because precisely because they had sufficient fresh water.

Water is also holy. It is holy water into which we dip our fingers and cross ourselves as we enter church. It is holy water by which we are baptised. Holy water which seals us together as a Christian family with one Lord, one faith, one Baptism (Ephesians 4:5). And what is holy water and water makes it holy? In some Christian traditions, a priest blesses water to make it holy. In my own United Church of Canada parish, we bless the waters of baptism as congregation, passing the vials of water through the pews, asking each person to hold it, perhaps say a prayer, and pass it along, so that when a new Christian is baptised into our family it is with water made holy through our collective faith. And while perhaps "lower-church" Protestants may not use the term "holy water" or expressly bless it, the holiness of the waters of baptism remains. It is molecularly ordinary H20, the same with which we wash our bodies, that becomes holy in its role in the sacrament of baptism so that it washes away even our sins.

Water is ordinary. Water is holy. This paradox is incarnational; it is sacramental. As Christians we claim an absolutely human first-century Galilean is absolutely God. And we approach that incarnated God through tangible acts. Sacraments, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, are "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," a bridge by which those things which seem so ordinary—perhaps water, perhaps bread or wine—represent and become profoundly holy. 

Of course, satisfying our bodily needs is spiritually insufficient. And so it was beside a well of ordinary water that Jesus taught, "Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). But Jesus' metaphor is works precisely because the daily necessity of water is so clear. In his encyclical Laudato Si', Pope Francis writes, "access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights" (30).  

While I believe in the omnipotent power of God to do whatever God wills apart from human action, I find it deeply revealing that Jesus instituted sacraments that require the tangible presence of clean water, or nourishment of bread and wine. How dare we speak of our saviour being a spring of everlasting life if we do not share the springs of water equitably and protect their cleanliness for others. How dare we offer the holy meal of Christ's body and blood if we do not share the bounty of the earth equitably and grow it sustainably. 

The Holy Father wrote:

Fresh drinking water is an issue of primary importance, since it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems… Water poverty especially affects Africa where large sectors of the population have no access to safe drinking water or experience droughts which impede agricultural production… One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor. Every day, unsafe water results in many deaths and the spread of water-related diseases, including those caused by microorganisms and chemical substances. Dysentery and cholera, linked to inadequate hygiene and water supplies, are a significant cause of suffering and of infant mortality. Underground water sources in many places are threatened by the pollution produced in certain mining, farming and industrial activities, especially in countries lacking adequate regulation or controls. It is not only a question of industrial waste. Detergents and chemical products, commonly used in many places of the world, continue to pour into our rivers, lakes and seas (Laudato Si' 28-29).

This not "merely" a political issue, or a capitalist issue. (And what does "merely political" even mean, as politics is the mechanism by which we in democracies make, or abdicate, moral stands?) Any attempt to pretend our care of creation's resources or compassion sharing of these resources with our siblings in the family of God is disconnected from our faith, as if Jesus' being our well-spring released us from sharing the very real springs of water our Heavenly Creator has given us, is a perversion and a sacrilege.  

Prophetically—not in the popular sense of foreseeing the future, but in the Biblical tradition of attentiveness to and challenging of the world's realities—the Holy Father notes, "In some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatise this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights," and warns, "Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity" (30).

Multinational corporate giant Nestlé has been widely criticised for sucking aquifers dry and selling water, filtered and bottled in tonnes of fossil-fuel-based plastics, it obtained for nearly free at astronomical profits. It is hardly alone. Most industrial wastes of water are more hidden from the public than the bottled water market. And corporations do not engage in such destructive greed for their own maniacal evil satisfaction, as tempting as it is to picture CEOs as cartoonish villains. They behave as part of a free-market system that commoditises things because in our politics we, collectively, by our actions or more frequently our inactions, allow them to, and because we as paying consumers ultimately enable them to. 

As the Holy Father says, "the problem of water is partly an educational and cultural issue" (30). I prefer not to think about it. I like turning out a faucet and drinking clean water. I like that taking a shower in my first-world, urban apartment requires no thought, no reflection on my consumption, my privilege, or my politics. But as Christians, as those who place our hope of eternal life in the hands of the God who is living water, it our call to echo the Holy Father's call in our words and actions, to ensure all—those near and far, those rich and poor—have access to the waters our Creator has given us. Clean water is becoming less ordinary; perhaps that will help us remember how holy it is.