An Echinacea flower unfolds one petal at a time, a raindrop glistens translucent on a leaf, a red-tailed hawk soars overhead. Our Earth held in a counterpoint of balance. Yet how often do we humans disrespect and harm this sacred balance that our Creator fashioned to ensoul our world?
When Pope Francis launched his encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, he also named September 1 as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation - that we might take time to honour, celebrate and renew our spirits together in prayer for our common home. It is a time for contemplation and reflection that ushers in the entire Season of Creation that begins September 1st and concludes October 4th on the Feast Day of St. Francis. This is a sacred time to reflect on our human journey and renew our relationships with the natural world that sustains us with life-giving oxygen, soaring skies, and the breath-taking moments of beauty. It is also a time to recommit ourselves to the sacred task of healing our Earth and humanity’s journey that are inseparably bound in one continuous act of creation.
We have seen how Covid-19 has devastated our world, and yet it has marked a moment out of time when all the human world had to pause and come together to feel once more our common threads of humanity with its diverse religious, political and cultural aspects. And our Earth began to breathe once more, as our technological and industrial world slowed its hectic, life-depriving pace. It is important that we now pause to reconnect and heal amongst ourselves and with all God’s sacred creation. We are at a moment, a crossroads for the future of life in all its possibility on our planet. With this awareness, the year’s theme for the Season of Creation has been named as “Jubilee for the Earth.” This theme invites us to reflect upon the integral relationship between the Jubilee sense of rest for the Earth and the intersection of our lived social, economic, ecological, and political lives. How might we live integral ecology in this time, in this world?
“May the whisper of butterfly wings and the joy of a child’s smile meet with the choices we make today. ”
As we celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, it is our time and our choice for life, all life on this Earth that most counts. We each have a moment, an opportunity to re-commit, to renew, and to grow in the wonder of one whole and holy life for all beings of this planet. Whether it seems small and perhaps not to matter much -it does matter where our hearts and souls say yes to life for all. For the future of all the children of Earth today and the generations to come. Our souls were birthed in this rare and wonderful Earth by our Creator God. May the whisper of butterfly wings and the joy of a child’s smile meet with the choices we make today.
- Sister Linda Gregg, csj