Mater Ecclesiae, near Rugby, setting for one of the Laudato Si’ days of reflection
“Laudato si’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”. (Laudato Si’)
Members of religious congregations in England and Wales are being called to reflect on ecological conversion, with the launch of a new CoR group devoted to the environment. Following discussions and reflection by congregational leaders at the 2019 AGM, Religious are being invited to consider how they can use their experience and resources to bear witness to the need to care for our common home:
“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience” (Laudato Si’)
In some small way all of us can make a difference and in the Spring there will be days of reflection on Laudato Si’ where congregations will have the chance to come together and learn from each other about the vital and pressing challenge facing our world. The day is being repeated in three different locations and the keynote speakers will be Sr Margaret Atkins OSA, who is based at Boarbank Hall in Cumbria and Columban eco-theologian Fr Sean McDonagh. There will be input on practical ways to make changes by Steve Burrowes of the Laudato Si’ project in Salford diocese and John Paul de Quay of the Ecological Conversion group.
Sr Margaret Atkins OSA
Sr Margaret is in the process of making changes at Boarbank Hall and all those who attend the forthcoming meetings will be actively encouraged to set objectives for steps they can take in their own settings: “We have so far been concentrating on basic improvements to our heating system (cleaning out, insulation and then next will be individual thermostats ), tree planting (about 100 with the help of local schools - a Woodland Trust grant of baby trees for this), LED lighting for the Nursing Home, and eventually everywhere else,” says Sr Margaret. “What I realise is that with big old houses and often land to spare, we won’t ever have the energy ratings of a good new building, but if what we are looking for is improvement, we can do that dramatically with some very basic changes. We’re also doing smaller things - planting insect-friendly plants, bird boxes, looking at the possibility of a pond and some insect hotels .... And the primary school are going to do a project identifying and producing a display about our trees and wildflowers.”
Sr Shirley
Another member of a congregation, Croydon based Sister Shirley Aeria FMDM, has made a conscious decision to shape her ministry around conservation and is an active member of the Ecological Conversion Group. Here she explains why:
“After reading Laudato Si’ when it was first published, it sat uncomfortably with me because I knew that I had contributed variously to the destruction of ‘our common home.’
But it was only further down the line, during my sabbatical, that the voice within me urged me to address the matter. I discerned the way forward and, with the help of a perceptive spiritual director, I was at peace knowing that conservation was the area where I would engage with ecology in a more direct way. I know that my involvement with conservation will enable me to live fully and give glory to God.
The Ecological Conversion Group of Arundel and Brighton was just beginning their project so I wrote to them and now I am working with them. The Croydon Conservation group has been in existence for over sixty years and I contacted them to see if I could be involved. I have been on several trips with them since.
Practical conservation work involves coppicing trees and bushes to enable healthy growth. It also means that we preserve the habitats of birds and wildlife and check on the status of trees, water sources etc,.
Going into conservation ministry has entailed looking at my own lifestyle and not just paying lip service to a novel concept. This implies giving up a car and using public transport instead, being conscious of how I use electricity and water as well as reducing waste, avoiding the use of plastic materials, eating less meat……
Ecology and the love of creation are the warp and woof of my life as a Franciscan. My present ministry in conservation opens me to various experiences and learnings. If every single person on this planet could do their bit, we must live in hope that our ‘common home’ will be able to recover from the dire state it is in at present.”
‘God called the dry land Earth… and God saw that it was good.’ Genesis 1:10
A recent reflection on Laudato Si’ by Sister Margaret Atkins:
Laudato Si' begins by telling us how it is: the state of our planet, and what our faith has to say about that. Chapter One uses evidence from the hard sciences to describe our world: pollution, climate change, scarcity of water, the loss of thousands of species. It does so, however, with a rhetorical power designed to make us care: 'The earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth.' 'The world is a joyful mystery, to be contemplated with gladness and praise.'
So, what does the Gospel have to say about creation? 'We are not God.' The world is the gift of our Creator, so that each creature is good and beautiful, and we are all interrelated. Indeed, our interrelatedness mirrors the Trinitarian nature of God. Our story, traced through the beginning of Genesis, is one of rupture. As we broke away from God, we also broke our peace with the natural world. Reconciliation with God, with each other and with the natural world are all part of the same process, the peace-making and healing that comes through Christ. Jesus himself knew and loved the Galilean countryside, its birds, plants and animals. And why would he not? - he, the Son of God, through whom all things were made, redeemed and restored.
The central chapters look at where we have gone wrong, and how we might go right. First, Pope Francis, closely following his predecessors, describes how we forget that we are not gods; we try to control everything ourselves. Pope Francis calls this 'the technocratic paradigm', from techne (skill) and cratos (power). We begin to see the world as there for us to manipulate. In practice, this means that powerful people take control. They control first others' things; then other people; then even the truth. Manipulation leads directly on to relativism - the truth itself is what I want it to be.
Technocracy fragments the world into manipulatable chunks. Laudato Si' reminds us insistently that 'everything is interconnected.' We have learnt that lesson from biologists: ecology is the science of the interconnectedness of life. The recent popes have taught that there is also a human, social ecology; and that this is inseparable from natural ecology. Indeed, a healthy personal and social morality, economics, politics and finance are all intermeshed with the well-being of the environment.
Finally, Laudato Si' leads on to action. We need effective dialogue, policy and action at every level: global, national and local. But before all else, we need 'ecological conversion', an inner, spiritual confession of sin, responsibility, praise and gratitude that changes our attitude and transforms our practice. This is indeed challenging. What it is not is grim and gloomy. Living more lightly and more generously is liberating and will bring us joy and peace at the deepest level.
But we Catholics should be inspired by, not ashamed, of our faith. It gives us all that we need to live lightly on the planet….. God the Creator and Christ who redeemed the world he entered and loved. The Holy Spirit, the Church and the sacraments to sustain us in hope. And a moral tradition that honours simplicity, justice, unselfishness and peace. We cannot save the planet by ourselves. We don't need to. We are not alone. We are interconnected, with God, with each other and with our world.
DETAILS OF DAY OF REFLECTION FOR RELIGIOUS (the same day is being repeated in different locations):
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 29TH : in Salford Cathedral Centre. Keynote speaker: Sr Margaret Atkins OSA with input from Steve Burrowes of the Laudato Si’ Centre, Salford Diocese
SATURDAY MARCH 14th : in London, venue to be confirmed. Keynote speaker: Fr Sean McDonagh, a Columban, with input from John Paul de Quay of the Ecological Conversion Group.
SATURDAY MARCH 21st: at Mater Ecclesiae convent, Street Ashton, Rugby CV23 0PJ - a beautiful rural setting, ideal for reflecting upon the environment! Keynote speaker: Sr Margaret Atkins OSA, with input from John Paul de Quay of the Ecological Conversion Group.
The days will run from 1000 to 1600 with lunch included. To register please email : admin@corew.org specifying which day you would like to attend.