"CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME"

“I think to myself, ‘What a wonderful world!”  Not only Louis Armstrong marvelled, so also did God Himself.  “Then God looked over all he had made, and He saw that it was very good!” (Gen. 1.31).

What is more, He, our Creator, has appointed us  custodians of His handiwork.  What a privilege! What a responsibility! Just think of it! God trusts you; God trusts me – with His precious world! He has placed it in our hands!

To a great extent we’ve done a pretty good job.  We’ve learnt to  improve plants and animals so that they can better feed a growing population; scientists are continuely discovering ways of improving our quality of life and conquering diseases.  We have good reason to be proud of our achievements.

But these have come at a great cost.   Short-sighted selfishness has led us to pollute the very air we breathe and the water we drink. Our health and well-being depend  on them remaining wholesome.

As various species become extinct they can no longer give glory to their maker, simply by being themselves. Without them our lives are impoverished.  Through the selfish greed  and wastage of the wealthy world the people of the impoverished world starve.

Through our short-sightedness future generations will be deprived of their rightful heritage.  We are failing them; we are failing in our God-given stewardship to protect, develop and share the fruits of the earth, which the ‘Giver of All Good Things’ has provided for the human family as a whole.

Pope Francis has responded to the world-wide concern for what he calls   ‘Our Common Home.’  In the encyclical ‘Laudati Si’ he both proclaims the wonder of God’s creation and deplores the way we are destroying it.  He also urges us to reverse its decline by taking steps to preserve it.

More recently, he declared 1^st Sept. 2016 to be a special day of prayer for the ‘Care of Creation, Our Common Home.’

To re-enforce this need Pope Francis proposed ‘Care of Our Common Home’ as a new Work of Mercy, in addition to the traditional fourteen.  He argues that if we look at the works of mercy as a whole, we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces.  Obviously “human life itself and everything it embraces” must include care for our common home.

He develops this theme. As a spiritual work of mercy, care for our common home calls for a “grateful contemplation of God’s world” (Laudato Si, 214) which “allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us” (ibid., 85). As a corporal work of mercy, care for our common home requires “simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness” and “makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world” (ibid.,  230-31).

Only if we take Care of Our Common Home seriously will we and future generations be able to say, ‘We think to ourselves, ‘What a wonderful world!’ Hopefully we will join the celestial chorus of   “… every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might
for ever and ever!’  (Rev. 5. 13).

Isidore Clarke, O.P.

 

 

?POSSIBLE DREAMS?

I must have my own space! I must have my own time! On Sunday morning with several Masses to celebrate and sermons to preach, the last thing I need is to be rushed, without having the leisure to loosen my limbs, tune into God and  get over the heavy drowsiness of a good night's sleep.
 

And so it happened that on one Sunday morning, countless years ago, both my usually reliable 'body clock' and my alarm clock failed to awaken me. Neither did the Holy Spirit or any of my Guardian Angels. Far be it from me to suggest that they were sleeping at their posts!
 

The time came when two worthy parishioners were pounding on my door and calling my name. Much was their relief to find that I was still half alive in a distant drowsy fashion. They told me I was already late and that there was no need to stampede myself into action.
 

In the twilight world of semi-consciousness I groped my way to the car. As I made my drowsy way down the aisle of the church I heard a small boy whisper, "Mummy, Father's still asleep!" True! True! True! With my head aching at the effort of trying to become devotional, and, harder still, to sound coherent, I would not be surprised if many in the congregation thought I was talking in my sleep as well as walking.
 

People like to boast that they've got their act together, at long last and after so much effort...not without moments of elation and heart-break. To reach the peak and remain on top of our responsibilities is an enviable achievement.
 

But suppose God saw it conducive to my personal formation that I should never feel totally secure, never utterly self-confident? What if throughout my life it were needful for me to be continually aware of my creaturely fragility? Then, surely if ever anything that I attempted were to"come off" just as I intended, instinctively I would say, "Thank you God, for bringing me through."
 

For me it simply is not true that practice makes perfect. Having been Fr. Reliable for so many years is no guarantee that I will wake up at a given time on any given Sunday. I've heard it said of some priests that they have preached so many sermons they could do it in their sleep!    Sounds like it, too!
 

Come to think of it, I remember a time when I was surging through my sermon when it seemed as though there were a power-cut in my brain. For a while my mind went blank. When I returned to the real world I wondered where I was and what I was doing. What to do but ask an altar server what was going on? Politely he told me he thought I was preaching. Obviously I had failed to make much of an impact on him.

What to do but to tell the congregation God had shut me down for a moment, and this I took to be an indication that He wanted me to shut up. Since no one protested I suggested we recite the Creed together. This certainly restored my wavering self-confidence.

My personal experience tells me that at the very time when I'm doing something important for God, He may  allow me to have a "power failure" and a "black out" in my preaching. He even allows my inner being to be in a state of flux. He's teaching me never to think in terms of my performance or my personal achievement. Mine is to be the instability of a jelly and the insecurity of walking on shifting sands.
 

I, and the People of God, are to be made to realize and accept what God has to offer: Preachers and Ministers who are no better and no worse than, "earthenware pots holding a priceless treasure, so that the immensity of the power is God's and not our own,"

(2 Cor. 4. 7).
 

It's somewhat unnerving not to know what God is liable to let happen to me once I set about doing something for Him! For the elite this may mean martyrdom. For the likes of me it may come down to a fuzzy head or loose bowels!

 Such is my spirituality of encountering and serving the Divine, mywaygodsway. This I must learn to live with, and, I fancy, so must you!

Peter  Clarke O.P.

ARE YOU A BATTERY HEN OR FREE RANGE CHICK ?

 

 

Has he gone mad? I wouldn't blame you if the title of this posting led you to question my sanity.

These musings came to me while I was reflecting on Christ's mission manifesto, in which He quoted the prophet Isaiah, (cf. 61. 1; Luke 4. 18-22). There He said that He had come to set prisoners free. But free from what; free for what? What striking image could I find to express the contrast between a godless captivity and the freedom Christ offers us? It was then that I remembered battery and free range hens -both of which I've seen. Perhaps they could provide a fresh approach to Christ's work of salvation.

Very, briefly -since you probably already know -free range hens can flap their wings and roam around the farmyard and fields, searching for nutritious grubs and insects. That's the natural life-style for them. But this form of poultry farming does have its disadvantages. It's more work to find and collect the eggs, and the hens are vulnerable to predators, such as foxes. This method is not intensive and efficient. In contrast, battery hens are cooped together in many small cages, in large sheds. The only light they see is artificial. Their whole existence is geared to the mass production of the cheap food which we all want. There's a vast difference between the poor quality of life of the caged battery hen and that of the free range-chick.

Of course Jesus didn't use this bizarre imagery. But he did contrast the slavery of sin, which restricts our development, and the freedom to be our true selves. He did promise to set us prisoners free and give us the fullness of life. That's what everyone wants. We all want the freedom of the free range chick to spread our wings and fly. We resent anyone who clips our wings and restricts our movement.

But where does true freedom lie? For some of us that consists in being masters of our own lives, with no one having the right to boss us around, telling us how we should behave. Taken to its extreme, this would mean that we would have no concern for the damage we did to ourselves or others -as long as we got our own way. Such would be the mentality of someone driving his car at literally break-neck speed. He may persuade himself that such freedom was necessary for his personal self-expression and fulfillment. No way is he willing to be inhibited by rules and regulations, which would prevent him from sharing in the enjoyment of seemingly free spirits. Could be, we may envy such people.

But the life-style of the libertine is far from liberating. Through sinful habits we construct our own cages, which restrict our development and growth as human beings and as the children of God. Bad habits and actions bring out the worst in us and often harm other people. We become enslaved to what the Letter to the Hebrews calls the, "Sin that clings," (12. 1). We resent someone like Jesus telling us that we are enslaved and need Him to set us free.

Jesus, in fact, tells us that only the truth can set us free, (John 8. 32). He strips away false notions about what freedom really means. He exposes the ways we deceive ourselves into thinking that when we chose to sin we are showing a mature independence. He opens our eyes and shows us that only He can offer us true liberty, real happiness, the fullness of life with His heavenly Father. He points out how destructive it is for us to choose to coop ourselves up in our sins, preferring the darkness of the cages we have fashioned for ourselves, to the freedom to spread our wings and fly upwards to the light of Christ.

Jesus Himself is the truth that sets us free. Not simply by giving us information, opening our eyes to what is right or wrong, true of false -though that is very important. He shows us that we can only find true liberty by following Him. The Truth, which is Christ Himself, is a divine source of power and energy. Not only does He show us the way to the Father, but He is the Way. He gives us the will and the strength to make the journey -to follow Him. If we believe in Him and trust Him He will break the shackles of sin and raise us beyond our human limitations to share God's own life.

Strangely, the prospect of freedom can be frightening. The person released from prison will no longer have the security of his cell and of a structured institutionalized life. Someone trying to come off drugs or alcohol dependence may fear losing these supports, even though they've ruined the quality of his life. So, too, we may wonder how we could cope if we were to decide to abandon a sinful life-style, which we must have found in some way attractive. We can become so used to the cage we've constructed for ourselves that we've become nervous about stepping outside and embracing the freedom Christ offers us.

The truth which sets us free, far from leading to anarchy, enables us to make the right decisions and act upon them. That's real freedom! The liberating truth -Christ Himself -transforms us miserable battery hens into free-range chicks, enjoying the glorious liberty of the children of God!

Isidore O.P.