Living Laudato Si’ : lessons from Boarbank

To celebrate the recent fifth anniversary of Laudato Si’ a pamphlet written by Sr Margaret Atkins OSA – ‘Catholics and Our Common Home’ has been reprinted in a revised version, with the new subtitle, ‘Caring for the Planet in a Time of Crisis.’ It’s available from  https://www.ctsbooks.org

Sister Margaret, who’s based at Boarbank Hall in Cumbria, has spent decades talking about the Christian imperative to care for planet earth and the coronavirus pandemic has become a moment for further intense reflection on the environment:

“Here at Boarbank we’ve been thinking about these issues for a long time and during lockdown I had the chance to focus even more, given that what I usually spend my time doing such as retreats stopped happening” said Sr Margaret.

Adapting to the ‘new normal’  has involved a crash course in caring, in case emergency help was required at the care home run by her community;   there has also been the necessity to rethink her regular courses and retreats, to see what can be offered online instead;  and also greater time to be ‘hands on’ outside in the extensive grounds of Boarbank, learning, not least from the Boarbank gardeners, more about conservation, sustainability, tree planting, food crops, cuttings, seed planting, wildflowers and pollinators ….

Prayer life has been impacted too: “So many people have been in touch to ask for prayers over these difficult months of worry and loss. We have been drawn into much more intercessory prayer” reflects Sr Margaret, who sees the ‘pause’ that has been forced upon humanity as a moment to reassess many aspects of life.

Boarbank is a large complex with a Guest House in a 19th century building, a convent and chapel, a more modern nursing home and grounds equating to the size of a small farm, with fields, woodland and a substantial vegetable garden and greenhouses. Sr Margaret says they regard themselves as the guardians of a precious resource: “We’ve been asking ourselves, how do we look after all of this and what more can we do?” 

Sr Margaret

To encourage other congregations who may also have to tackle old fashioned buildings which are blocking their efforts to “go green”  - Sr Margaret insists obstacles can be overcome: “We have more than 190 radiators on one of our two main heating systems, but there are six systems in total. So it’s been a huge challenge but we’re delighted that a project that began a year ago to instal thermostats on each radiator has finally just been completed. So it is possible to make these changes, but it’s taken a year of planning….. We’ve also put in a lot of insulation which will make a huge difference to the heating bills in this very old building where we’re stuck with an ancient system. Future challenges involve changing the lighting system and installing more double glazing.”

Lockdown also provided the opportunity to focus more on the beautiful grounds at Boarbank.  The vegetable garden is already well established but more thought is going into composting and cutting back on waste, eg., when there’s a glut of tomatoes, the excess now goes to a local food club ;  a partnership has also been formed with a local group  to harvest all the plentiful apples to produce and sell juice locally. The windfall apples are included and juice is given back to Boarbank.

Planting has been another focus.  There’s been a tree planting project with a local school and sustained efforts to develop wildflower areas and lavender bushes, leading to a riot of colour, to the delight of the carehome residents.

Newly planted lavender beds

“There are a lot of challenges” concedes Sr Margaret. “Through spending more time in the grounds I’ve realised how much you need to KNOW botanically and biologically. It’s a very interesting journey that we’re just at the beginning of, but we can already see big changes.“

Sr Margaret has also become involved in preparing for a local ‘seedlings’ project – to enable people to grow their own vegetables even on very small patches of land: “People can share seeds, learn from each other and develop self sufficiency. It also reduces food miles and is good for community building.”

Tree planting project with a local school

Reflecting back on decades of commitment to ecology from a Christian perspective, Sr Margaret now observes the very striking convergence of faith and secular principles: “In a sense what we’re seeing is the Church and the world coming closer together around this issue, coming to a deeper appreciation of our common home. One of the really exciting things is that it’s an area where the whole secular teaching is converging on Catholic social teaching principles.”

“There’s also a connectivity in all of this,”  adds Sr Margaret. “As Laudato Si’ emphasises, if you do things better in one area, other spheres will be impacted for the better and as Pope Francis stresses, you can’t separate the cry of the earth from the cry of the poor.”

So to sum up, Sr Margaret hopes  to encourage other congregations to become more environmentally conscious and hopes the learning curve at Boarbank will help other communities consider making care of the environment central to their ministry and outlook.

A reflection on the pandemic by Sr Margaret Atkins OSA:

We have learnt how much we want to protect vulnerable people from sickness and death.
How much do we want to protect our vulnerable planet, on which the lives and health of all of us and every living thing depends?

We have learnt that we are prepared to sacrifice our travel, our comforts to reduce the spread of a pandemic.
What are we prepared to sacrifice to reduce forest fires, floods, drought and the destruction of other species?

We have learnt that we can act with boldness, energy, speed and conviction, that we can change our habits drastically and effectively, that we can work together as a global family, east and west, rich and poor, to respond a short-term and temporary emergency.
Are we prepared to do this to respond to a long-term and permanent one?

We have discovered the resilience of our local communities, the generosity, compassion and courage of millions of ordinary people, the inventiveness and creativity of the same.
How can we harness these to face the biggest collective challenge of all?

We have been given space and time to ponder and pray. We have glimpsed clean air and clean seas. We have listened to birdsong where once there was only traffic. Can we grasp the hope that this offers?

The Christian Church can make a unique contribution to the healing of our planet, in at least three ways. Firstly, if most Christians, let alone most religious people, were to live fully the ecological implications of their faith, their numbers are significant enough to reach a tipping point for positive change; we can be the anticipation of the kingdom of heaven, the ‘leaven in the dough’ (Matthew 13.33). Secondly, the Church can offer an existing structural model of an organisation that connects global with local moral leadership, understood precisely as service, along with a mass of members explicitly committed to trying to live well as communities. The Church also has a history of successfully effecting dramatic changes of behaviour; it is not far-fetched to read the history of the Church as a history of successive reforms. There is much here from which wider society might learn.

Above all, we have our faith. We do not need to invent a new way of living. Our saints have been living ‘ecology’, out of love of God, for the last two millennia. Let us take them as our models as we commit ourselves to acting, yes, with urgency, but also with calm and patient trust, as God is calling us to do.