I’ve now had time to sink into Pope Francis’ new encyclical on “Care for our Common Home.” I hope to unpack more of it soon but there have been a few quotes from it that have been coming back to me over and over. These are probably not the 10 things everyone needs to take away from the letter, but I think they might be the things I need to take seriously in my own life. Hopefully in the weeks to come I will be able to take some time to unpack the whole thing, but for now here are the highlights for me.
1. Creation is a sacrament
As Christians, we are also called “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbors on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet” (LS 14)
This is such a powerful thought. I love the seamless garment language applied to our whole ecological life. I also love the identification of creation as a sacrament. There is probably a lot of depth to be mined from that way of thinking.
2. Air-Conditioning is a harmful habit (but simply one among many)
Some countries are gradually making significant progress, developing more effective controls and working to combat corruption. People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive. (LS 55)
This is perhaps a silly passage to include but I’ll be honest I can’t stop thinking about it. This critique is simple but it hits where it hurts. I like that even though I’ve spent a lot of sweaty nights since the letter was released.
3. Renewal is rooted in discovering God’s hidden drum track in the world
The biblical tradition clearly shows that this renewal entails recovering and respecting the rhythms inscribed in nature by the hand of the Creator. We see this, for example, in the law of the Sabbath. On the seventh day, God rested from all his work. He commanded Israel to set aside each seventh day as a day of rest, a Sabbath, (cf. Gen 2:2-3; Ex 16:23; 20:10). Similarly, every seven years, a sabbatical year was set aside for Israel, a complete rest for the land (cf. Lev 25:1-4), when sowing was forbidden and one reaped only what was necessary to live on and to feed one’s household (cf. Lev 25:4-6). Finally, after seven weeks of years, which is to say forty-nine years, the Jubilee was celebrated as a year of general forgiveness and “liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants” (cf. Lev 25:10). (LS 71)
I find it fascinating that the creation account tells us the days and seasons were not based on the sun, stars and moons but instead the Sun stars and moon were created to show us God’s days and seasons. This says something deep about the way God intends us to live. Spending time recognizing the patterns of life that God is setting is key to encountering God’s life at work each day.
4. Francis is a Techno-Skeptic
Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way of solving these problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others. (LS 20)
Every time you pick up a new bit of technology ask what the ripple effect of this might have on your world… and on you.
5. Subsidiarity works up as well as down
Interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan (LS 164)
Just as subsidiarity calls us to address issues with family and local units whenever possible it scales upward. Global issues require global leadership and global cooperation.
6. The incarnation and the sacraments should be our starting point as Christians… and our ending point
The Sacraments are a privileged way in which nature is taken up by God to become a means of mediating supernatural life. Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane. Water, oil, fire and colours are taken up in all their symbolic power and incorporated in our act of praise. The hand that blesses is an instrument of God’s love and a reflection of the closeness of Jesus Christ, who came to accompany us on the journey of life. Water poured over the body of a child in Baptism is a sign of new life. Encountering God does not mean fleeing from this world or turning our back on nature. This is especially clear in the spirituality of the Christian East. “Beauty, which in the East is one of the best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of a church, in the sounds, in the colours, in the lights, in the scents”.[164] For Christians, all the creatures of the material universe find their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of definitive transformation. “Christianity does not reject matter. Rather, bodiliness is considered in all its value in the liturgical act, whereby the human body is disclosed in its inner nature as a temple of the Holy Spirit and is united with the Lord Jesus, who himself took a body for the world’s salvation”. (LS 235)
This passage is some great sacramental theology. I’ve read it over and over.
7. The Eucharist demonstrates the hope of all the world
It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures. The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, he comes that we might find him in this world of ours. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living centre of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: “Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world”.[166] The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation. The world which came forth from God’s hands returns to him in blessed and undivided adoration: in the bread of the Eucharist, “creation is projected towards divinization, towards the holy wedding feast, towards unification with the Creator himself”.[167] Thus, the Eucharist is also a source of light and motivation for our concerns for the environment, directing us to be stewards of all creation. (LS 236)
I think I need to read this paragraph every Sunday morning before I go to mass.
8. Our dependence on this world is an essential way God teaches us about his own life
The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships.[171] This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfilment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity. (LS 240)
You are experiencing an icon of the divine every time you take a drink and every breath you take offers a theology lesson. Every part of life connects us to a reality outside of ourselves and offers a reminder of God as Trinity.
9. Nearly all the crises we face can be rooted in forms of anthropocentrism
When human beings fail to find their true place in this world, they misunderstand themselves and end up acting against themselves: “Not only has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for the original good purpose for which it was given, but, man too is God’s gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and moral structure with which he has been endowed (LS 115)
When a man becomes the measure sin become a regulator. Read all of chapter iii to get into all his examples. They range from free market economics, to sexual abuse and abortion. There are none who escape Francis’ social commentary here.
10. He begins and ends with a prayer
O Lord, seize us with your power and light,
help us to protect all life,
to prepare for a better future,
for the coming of your Kingdom
of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!
Amen. (LS 246)
May we all begin and end with prayer as well!
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