This week we are invited to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si, this key and prophetic encyclical from Pope Francis. As we are in the midst of a global pandemic and sanitary crisis that acts both as a revelation of our ills, dysfunctions and lights, good practices, this text takes on even more prominence. We can’t deny any longer the depth of our social and ecological crisis. At the same time, we are more aware of our interdependency and connectedness. For instance, the last synod on the Amazon has shown us how our choices and lifestyles in western countries have a great impact on the Pan-Amazon region and other places all over the world. This crisis is emphasizing Pope Francis’ teaching “that “Everything is interconnected” (Laudato si’, §70, 138, 240) and illustrates that “we are all in the same boat” as Pope Francis reminded us during his meditation Urbi et orbi. We realize that the only way to go out from this pandemic is to act together in solidarity. Thus we are called to be in the crew with others to seek together how to navigate on a stormy sea with a lot of different currents. This crisis is a call to think and act collaboratively to design the course to follow and to implement the right maneuvers to move the boat in the right direction.
But the good news is that we are not lost on the ocean, we have already good roadmaps and GPS! Laudato Si and the synod on the Amazon’s Final Document with its key words – alliance, conversion, integral ecology, synodality, mission, and dialogue – along with Querida Amazonia structured in four chapters – 1/ A social dream 2/ a cultural dream 3/ an ecological dream 4/ an ecclesial dream - give us clear and interesting guidelines that are proving to be truly prophetic in the face of this crisis. It expresses a strong call to change. It reveals how we are at the end of a system that destroys the earth and generates so many inequalities. And it is noticeable to see that the lockdown reinforces this awareness, as many people staying at home have discovered that they could live a simpler life and that it is good for the environment.
This crisis is a test that requires our creativity and audacity. This time is also a “Kairos”, an opportunity to stop and check in to choose a better future and build a better world. As we need to stay at home, we are confronted more closely with sickness and death, we are experimenting with our personal and communal vulnerability at different levels. So we have to go deeper in ourselves, to reflect on our lives and to discern the signs of the times that mean a common listening of the Holy Spirit through an attitude of decentering to listen to the peripheries. In the course of my religious life and my various ministries I have experienced how important and fruitful is it to cross the borders of our own congregation and to promote synergy, inter-congregational reflection and action, and more broadly, sharing with other sisters and brothers from different culture, vocation, spirituality, faith. May this challenging and uncertain time help us to foster the wave of people of goodwill working for the common good.
Sr Nathalie Becquart, xmcj, Boston May 18, 2020