As one opens
the Bible, the first Sentence reads “In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”(Genesis 1:1 RSV). This comes as a reminder to reawaken one to be
cautious of his or her origin and sense of purpose on earth. God the author of
life becomes the mover and originator of all that is brought into existence.
There is a specific place: the heavens and the earth. Therefore, as things come
into being by God the creator, there is a sense of care, protection and
necessary conditions for holding on to life of the creatures created or brought
forth.
Pope Francis in
his opening remarks on care of
creation uses the expression “Laudato si,
mi signore”- “Praise Be to You, My Lord”.[1] He introduces us to the mode of giving
thanks to the Lord for his wonderful gifted hands that can be witnessed in
creation. Everything that is created gives thanks to the Lord, an offer of
praise and adoration for the Creator in hymns of praise. This manifests the
image of God the Creator who is full of love, oneness, peace and benevolence,
as recited by St. Francis in the Canticle of creatures in the praise of
creation.
Pope Francis in
the encyclical letter calls for an urgent attitudinal mind shift towards the
care of the common home. Building on from the maternity model, he goes on to
remind us that the sister now cries to us because of our irresponsible use and
abuse of the goods with use God has endowed her. The violence we are unleashing
to our sister seems to be unimaginable and quantified. This drives us into the
heart of the problem, “we know that the
whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now” (Rom 8:22). The Pope calls on to everyone
into radical surgery in reshaping our relationship with God, neighbor and the
world around us. He reminds us that nature is a gift presented to human beings
to build a strong sense of family that is well founded on integral development
where we seek a sustainable and integral development.
The Pope keeps
the hope alive by believing that things can change. The call is based on
co-creation, by virtue of sharing with God in His image and likeliness is an
assurance of his journeying with us in this crisis, and together with Him we
can create a new creation. Man is being called upon to collaborate with God in
co-creation and care. This appeal goes to those who are hit hard, the poor and
the future generation to come that can be seen in the youth demand for change
that is manifesting itself in resistance against corruption, bad governance and
exaggerated accumulation and lack of care of creation and the poor people. The
youth have stared questioning and putting the elders into generational crisis.[2] The
question that we need to impose for ourselves to get back our senses for soul
searching and re-awakening to our vocation is, have we heard the groans and
travails of our sister? The Pope reminds us to get back to the Word of God.
Kuriakose
builds on Pope Francis invitation to all of us to get engaged in answering the
raised question above:
We live at a time
where there is so much strife and struggle, division and dissention in
different parts of the world due to ethnicity, nationality and creed. The
encyclical has come as a timely reminder that we all belong to a common home,
and we are brothers and sisters to each other, irrespective of one’s religious
or cultural affiliation. Thus environmental concern is the concern of the
‘human family’. What is required is joint action and firm determination to work
together to protect “Our Common Home” from the catastrophic eventualities.[3]
E. Jenkins, in
his Book entitled, Secular, Jewish,
Catholic, Protestants and Muslim Perspectives analyzed has a very a unique
way of looking at the creator and among these many ways we shall use two of
them: the Jewish and the Catholic perspectives perspective in this thesis. From
the Jewish understanding he begins by introducing us to the warning about the
temptation that the modern man may find himself battling with:
Modern man is
likely to experience some problems with personal nature of God reflected in
Genesis because, because the relationship of modern man to God is not usually
as intimately personal and direct as that of biblical man. To the ancients, God
was not an abstract force principle, or process. Instead for the Jewish
Patriarchs, God was Father, Friend, and King- all of which implies a “person”.
Individuality was the highest expression of creation, and God the Creator could
be spoken of only in such terms. It would not have occurred to the Patriarchs
to speak of God’s image, and it was therefore most natural to think of God as
speaking, seeing, regretting, and occasionally as walking just like any other ordinary
man.[4]
According to
the catholic perspectives he builds the argument by stating:
In ancient Israel a
day was considered to begin at sunset. According to the highly artificial
structure of Genesis 1:1-2:4, God’s creativity is divided into six days to
teach the sacredness of the Sabbath rest on the seventh day in the Jewish
religion. Man is presented here as a climax of God’s creative activity. Here
man is said to resemble God primarily because of the dominion God gives man
over the rest of creation. But in genesis that order is organized as a single
week with single focus, the making of human beings in the divine image.[5]
The more man
starts to ignore and become insensitive towards his brother and sister, it
creates a state of disorder and lawlessness in a given family, community and
society at large. With these uncertainties man may end up being very
detrimental and destructive to himself and his fellow man in the long run.
Hence by extension to his surrounding, which in this research we shall refer to
as environmental and ecological destruction.
Pope Francis
extends an invitation to men and women of courage who with goodwill can dare to
bring a difference around them. This, invitation was rightly made during his
inauguration Homily in the March 19, 2013 in the following pleading:
“Let us be
“caretakers” of creation, caretakers of God’s plan inscribed in nature,
protectors of one another and of the environment, let’s not allow omens of
destruction and death to accompany the advance of the world! But be “caretakers,”
we also have to keep the watch over ourselves! Let’s not forget that hatred,
envy and pride defile our lives! Be care takers, then, also because they are
the seat of good and evil intention: intentions that build up and tear down! We
must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness.[6]
Taking care of
creation is clarion call for everybody. It’s not for only a few but for
everyone who belongs and walks this planet earth. This comes presented in the
first chapter of book of Genesis and well passionately recited by St. Francis
in his canticle of creation. The siren has gone off, man has to wake up from
his deep slumber and to do something as far as saving the environment and God’s
creation is concerned. Creation and humanity go hand in hand, that the damage
of one sends shock waves ripple effect to the other. This comes clearly stated
by Pope Francis:
It means caring for
one another in families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and
then, as parents, they care for their children, and children, in themselves, in
time, protect their parents. It means building sincere friendship in which we
protect one another in trust, respect, and goodness. In the end everything has
been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be
caretakers of God’s gift.[7]
From this point
of departure Pope Francis delves into reawakening man from his slumber mode by
imposing a question. What is happening to our Common home?
Laudato si’ stands out as one of the great social encyclical because its approach
is so interdisciplinary in nature that has to have a vision capable of confronting global crisis in understanding
integral ecology that is grounded on respect that displays itself in human and
social dimensions.[8]
This should be able to launch us into the discernment process where we confront
crisis from an integral perspective. The method or tool to confront this
integral approach is the method we call pastoral cycle or YCS method that
consists the cycles of see, judge, and act. These have come to be known in
spiritual circles as an Ignatian method of Spiritual exercises.[9]
These methods
create a proper discernment process where one has to find an interior state of
consolation and desolation, whereby the decisions that are made in times of
consolation are likely to be consistent with the will of God. One has to make a
major decision in which state of life one loves to live. This is cultivated and
nurtured in family environment. For a shared responsibility between the family,
the community and the state is aimed at recovering, strengthening and promoting
the cultural identity. This cultural
identity, family and community should lead to care, protection, the defense and
giving thanks to Mother Earth.
The encyclical Laudato Si’ is about the care of the
common home where Pope Francis manifests to humanity in search for
reconciliation with self and the environment. This document takes its name from
the canticle of St. Francis. The “Canticle of Creatures”. He introduces the concept of integral
ecology. Our world is one and it has everything in it, we all depend on it, we
are all networked to it like an umbilical code, a world with a network of
relations.
Pope Francis
divides the encyclical into six chapters. These divisions are categorized into
different angle components: “What is Happening to the Common Home,” (nn.17-61),
the “Gospel of Creation” (nn.62-100), “The Human Root of Ecological Crisis”
(nn.101-136), “Integral Ecology” (nn.137-162), “Lines of Approach and Actions,”
(nn.163-201), “Ecological Education and Spirituality,” (nn.202-246).
Pope Francis’
integral ecology becomes a new paradigm of justice, in which the preoccupations
on nature, the equity versus poverty, becomes a commitment of the society, but
also the joy of living interior peace which can't be separated. Our land not
being taken care of and has dried, it calls for a change of route, a new
ecological conversation from the part of men to take responsibility of the
commitment to care of the common home.
The heart of
this encyclical is an integral ecology that turns into a new paradigm of
justice because nature is not just a mere frame of human life with an attached
appendix. The central question of this encyclical is what type of world are we
leaving for those who will come after us especially the children that are now
growing? This is not a question of ideology, but an interrogative force that
puts the ecological question at the centre future humanity.
The Pope
doesn’t put man at the center but he approaches the reality anthropocentrically
with issues concerned with environment and social structures. They are not two
separated crises that form a single complex social-environmental crisis.
Notwithstanding, Laudato Si’ do not
only respond to the central question of the investigation but in a sense
existential parameters. The underlying point is when we ask ourselves; at what
point do we start to exist on this planet? This means a true call to interpret
these changes in their rightful and just manner, venturing into an ethical
reflection with social and global sustainable development of the environment
and humanity. These will essential elements such as solidarity, putting in
practice the rightful tools for sustainability in the long term, the capacity
to be united in the fight against environmental degradation combining it with
that of alleviating poverty in countries that are heavily paying heavily for
the consequences of the ecological and environmental crisis.
Today we live
in a world that has lost its sense of community wellbeing, whereby everything
seems to be priced and technologically updated every month, and man is losing
his bearing of community and brotherhood. We have to transcend, hoping for
something into creating something that opens an encounter with others in the
common home.
A crisis is a
sign of transformative growth that should not scare us, we have to open
ourselves to this reality of a God who concrete. The fruits of the spirit of
mindfulness, rediscover the most important route of a concrete reality and walk
to conversion. This may call upon all to live in austerity, adjusting our belts
for bumpy ride. Our invested interests and profits should be based on the
capital in our possession, not nature. This means that both the church and the
State should be economically shrewd on the use of natural resources through
creating an economic strong base to be able to assess well the proper care of
the environmental and economic development at the expense of conservation of
environmental and ecological wetlands, forests and mountains. These attitudes
will drive those concerned as environmental protagonists into a contemplative
action mode of humbling experience in reaching and adopting the means of
decision making.
Of course, this
sometimes may not always coincide with what looks great and strong. These
leitmotivs will convert us to be open to the realities we encounter and
catapult us to horizons of new world order. These shifts will only be
actualized through discernment, looking at the signs of the times with insights
emerging through appropriate solutions of current challenges. This will mean
allowing space and power for self-asserting and not impositions on solutions,
to those who live in the reality to move the debate.
It is vitally
important for the church today to go forth and preach the Gospel to all and to
every places, without hesitation, reluctance or fear. The joy of the gospel is
for all people and that means no one is excluded. That is what the angel
proclaimed to the shepherd in Bethlehem: "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which
will come to all the people (Luke 2:10).
And in the Book of Revelation it speaks of "an eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to every
nation and tongue and tribe and people (Rev 14:6).[10]
[1] Francis, Apostolic
Exhortation Laudato Si’, n. 1 (24 May
2015) in AAS 107/9 (2015) 847-945; LS, going forth will stand for Laudato
Si’.
[2] Cf. LS, n. 13.
[3] K. Poovathumkudy, “Laudato Si’ Cry for the Earth and Cry
for the Poor”, in Vidyjyoti Journal of
Theological Reflection, (Vol.79, No. 8, August 2015), 579-594.
[4] E. Jenkins,
The Creation, Secular, Jewish, Catholic,
Protestant and Muslim Perspectives Analyzed, McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London 2003, 136
[5] E. Jenkins,
The Creation, Secular, Jewish, Catholic,
Protestant and Muslim Perspectives Analyzed, 194.
[6] Francis, Care of Creation, a Call for Ecological
Conversion, ed, G. Vigini, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 2015, 5.
[7] Francis, Care of Creation, A call for Ecological
Conversion, 5.
[8] Cf. LS,
n. 137
[9] M.R, Jurado,
El Discernimiento Espiritual, Teología Historia Practica, Estudios
y Ensayos, Espiritualidad. Biblioteca De Autores Cristianos, Madrid 2002,
224.
[10]Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudim, 24 November 2013 in AAS 105 23 (2013) 1019-1137.
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