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| The Vatican sharing it's space to project a Laudato Si inspired light show last year! Would you believe, many found this sacrilegious!! |
After having been blessed by an overabundance of collaborators on our blog for the past few weeks, I will take over the next 3 entries before a new roster of Summer bloggers comes your way! I'm actually quite privileged to be engaging in this shorter entry, which connects very directly with an idea Francis will explore in Chapter 4: The need to focus on an ecology that " incorporates a social perspective which takes into account the fundamental rights of the poor and the underprivileged" (93). This is to me, one of the core ideas of the Catholic Church's social teaching that reminds us that there is not one single issue or cause can really deserves our entire attention. As we were reminded in the last entry, everything is interconnected. Therefore, the way we address various issues needs to be connected as well. In other words, in caring for the earth, we should care for all creatures and people who dwell on earth, not just focus on caring for nature; In calling ourselves pro life, we should protest any issue that is an affront to life, not just abortion; Neither our concept of injustice, nor our understanding of who is marginalized can ever be limited, as we continue to deepen our care for all of creation.
Francis uses the words of St John Paul II to remind us that there's another dimension to this idea:"God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favoring anyone".(93) So while many of Francis' critics have accused him of being a socialist because of the way he has emphasized this idea that we should go out of our way to care for others, it seems that within 'natural law', within God's original designs for humanity, the sense of sharing, and equality was quite strong. The hording, unbalance, and injustice created by generations of our power hungry and self serving ancestors for whom sharing wealth with others was contrary to whatever 'ideology' that governed their inner being, continues to haunt us today in many shape and form.
It is so prevalent in our western society that many people of good will easily get discouraged that this brokenness within our world will ever be healed, that these bad habits we've been developing for millenniums will only deepen. This particular generation is certainly seeing the worse in humanity when 'Twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that robs the poor nations and future generations of what they need to survive.” (94) Francis doesn't just throw these quotes in to shock us...he is reminding us that our care for creation and for each other has become crucial, because our neglect of it has caused tremendous damage that many fear may be irreparable.
Meanwhile, there is a certain sacred rhythm in creation, where goods are quite easily shared, given, and taken equally by all creatures that on earth do dwell (hopefully, this is the first and last time I make reference to a CBW hymn on this site!!). St Francis certainly referred to how much we were a part of this in his prayers to our Brothers, Sisters in creation, reminding us, as the Psalms and other scriptures did, that we continue to depend on the wealth produced by creation. As Pope Francis stated in the beginning of Laudato Si, Nothing in this world is indifferent to us (2). So he uses all these shocking quotes to remind us why it is exactly that we can't be indifferent to this world. Let us reflect how we can carry that message in our prayers and in our lives this week, and try to see how it is that we can be a little less indifferent to creation and to those around us.
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