Here in the northern hemisphere, it is the season when light and life are fading. Darkness tends to encroach on our daylight ever more rapidly during these winter months and creates the perfect backdrop for Advent to do its work in us. In some ways it is the time to learn how to ‘see in the dark.’ This new way of seeing is more like a wake-up call. In the readings of the 1st Sunday of Advent, St. Paul already admonished us, “Brothers and sisters, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the amour of light; let us live honourably.” (Romans 13: 11-12)
In our day and age, living honourably has become ever more challenging. Not wanting to be a prophet of doom, I do acknowledge all the honourable things done by the many that care for our world, evident in so many commendable efforts made to turn things around, to protect our world and all who dwell here. However, as I wrote in last week’s reflection, Advent is a good time to take stock of how each one of us has contributed to the increasingly sad state of our precious life-giving planet.
In his encyclical Laudato ‘Si, Pope Francis draws our attention to how St. Francis viewed our common home, Mother Earth. In his eye’s our earth "is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us."1
Here we are in the 21st century, on the brink of an ecological crisis. We are living on Mother Earth who is threatened to the borderline of extinction. It is the eleventh hour to change our ways drastically, and change them soon, before it is too late – though some experts are of the opinion that we have long moved beyond the point of no return. What is happening to our common home? Our ecological challenges, precipitated by our ravenous capitalism, pollution and smog, the despoliation of the resources of the natural world, etc. impact our natural habitat. This ecological crisis in turn impacts our lives and in alarming numbers animals are threatened with extinction. With his encyclical, Pope Francis “metaphorically takes us by the hand and leads us to the plight of the Earth, its people and all its living things — and sometimes into places we would rather not go.”2
Most of us have learned things in the dark that we could never have learned in the light. Though we have been steeped in darkness, now is the time to see anew and heed this wake-up call. Let us be attentive, and take note:
what is God asking of me, of you?
What ecological virtues might we develop during this Advent season, and beyond?
As Richard Rohr points out, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.”
1.https://www.ncronline.org/news/earthbeat/spend-advent-laudato-si-and-question-what-god-asking-me
- Sr. Magdalena Vogt, CPS
The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.
-St. John of Damascene