The Season of Creation and the making of a crucifix in the spirit of Laudato Si’

Br Brother Loarne Ferguson OFM Cap

Bro Loarne

Thanks be to God for the liturgy! How could we ever keep in mind everything the Lord has given us if it were not broken up into our cycle of prayer? Every year is shaped by the events of the Lord’s life, the invisible realities of heaven, and the many needs He has sent us out to serve in the world around us. The Season of Creation refreshes our faith in God’s care for nature and points the way for us to act rightly within it.

But will it work? Will we change any of our ways because of this time? Do we need a more permanent expression of God’s care for nature before His ways become ours? We have become so used to thinking about God in a restricted way that unless the link between Christ’s death and the natural world is spelt out, maybe we will keep ignoring it.

It was thoughts such as these which inspired the Laudato Si’ crucifix. Not that making it was very intentional - it almost created itself. The garden shed at Durham Friary was where it began. We were clearing out garden debris when Br. Paul found three battered and broken crucifixes. “Shall I throw them away?” asked Br. Paul. “No,” I said. “I’ll take them home and see if I can use them.”

One was particularly sad. Under a layer of mould, the wood had been stained black, and the whitened body of Christ was hanging on by one arm (one of the doloristic-style crucifixes of years gone by.) It stood out as the only black and white one of the three: stark and final. But under that surface layer, the wood had lost nothing of its qualities. After carefully prizing out the nails and removing the corpus, a patient hour of sanding began to reveal the tree.

...And then another hour, and another hour. The black stain ran quite deep and never completely disappeared. Somehow, I felt that Jesus would speak only if I could see the pure, clean wood. And that is when it began to turn into a Laudato Si’ crucifix. In Jesus’ death I had to let nature speak. Carving out the shape of the Saviour’s body three millimetres deep revealed it.

Now, Jacob’s ladder came to mind and with it, Jesus’ words: “Truly, truly I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:51.) Or was it really Jacob’s ladder I imagined? Was it not perhaps a garden trellis? And were those angels birds? The creative process can be beset with uncertainty and metaphors are not always helpful; but I was sure I had seen that trellis ladder before.

Yes. It was a William Morris design. I printed it out and traced it over the wood. Using a pyrography machine (a sort of fine-tipped soldering iron) I burnt the trellis into the cross. Next, watercolours flowed among the leaves and flowers, and still allowed the wood to shine through. Jesus’ body began to bear fruit in a renewed creation. Varnish. More varnish. And yet more. This wood had been thirsty for a long time.

Finally, it was complete. The Laudato Si’ crucifix grew out of a reclaimed crucifix and a few meditations on Laudato Si’. Its purpose is to help our journey of ecological conversion become a daily one.

The crucifix and other ecologically inspired art is available for purchase on enquiry at:

The House of the Open Door Community, Childswickham, Worcs. WR12 7HH.

Tel.: 01386 852 084. E-mail: hod@houseoftheopendoor.org.

Building Hope for People & Planet : JPIC September meeting

Building hope for people and planet

Listening to the voice of creation

Led by Ellen Teague

                Saturday 24th September 2022

      10.00 am – 4.00 pm

Concluding with a Eucharist at 4.00pm

This will be a hybrid conference, on zoom and in person: at FCJ Spirituality Centre, Saint Aloysius Convent, 32 Phoenix Rd, London NW1 1TA

Ellen Teague is a London-based freelance Catholic journalist who writes and campaigns on Justice, Peace and Ecology issues. She has been a member of the JPIC team of the Columban Missionary Society in Britain for three decades and edits their newsletter, Vocation for Justice.

She also writes regularly for The Tablet, Messenger of St. Anthony International Edition and Redemptorist Publications, collaborating closely with organisations involved in the National Justice and Peace Network of England and Wales (NJPN). She is a member of the NJPN Environment Working Group and regularly speaks at diocesan days in England on  Laudato Si’.

Queries: Margaret Healy: margarethealyssl@gmail.com

All are welcome – Please bring family and friends

(Voluntary contribution of £10 (payable at the door)

For those on zoom a donation would be welcome

Tea and coffee provided (please bring your own lunch)

Message from His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer for the Season of Creation, September 1st, 2022:

Dear brothers and sisters!

“Listen to the voice of creation” is the theme and invitation of this year’s Season of Creation. The ecumenical phase begins on 1 September with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and concludes on 4 October with the feast of Saint Francis. It is a special time for all Christians to pray and work together to care for our common home. Originally inspired by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, this Season is an opportunity to cultivate our “ecological conversion”, a conversion encouraged by Saing John Paul 11 as a response to the “ecological catastrophe” predicted by Saint Paul v1 back in 1970. [1]

If we learn how to listen, we can hear in the voice of creation a kind of dissonance. On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this our common home.

The sweet song of creation invites us to practise an “ecological spirituality” ( Laudato Si’, 216), attentive to God’s presence in the natural world. It is a summons to base our spirituality on the “loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion” ( ibid., 220). For the followers of Christ in particular, this luminous experience reinforces our awareness that “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” ( Jn 1:3). In this Season of Creation, we pray once more in the great cathedral of creation, and revel in the “grandiose cosmic choir” [2] made up of countless creatures, all singing the praises of God. Let us join Saint Francis of Assisi in singing: “Praise be to you, my Lord, for all your creatures” (cf. Canticle of Brother Sun). Let us join the psalmist in singing, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” ( Ps 150:6).

Tragically, that sweet song is accompanied by a cry of anguish. Or even better: a chorus of cries of anguish. In the first place, it is our sister, mother earth, who cries out. Prey to our consumerist excesses, she weeps and implores us to put an end to our abuses and to her destruction. Then too, there are all those different creatures who cry out. At the mercy of a “tyrannical anthropocentrism” (Laudato Si’, 68), completely at odds with Christ’s centrality in the work of creation, countless species are dying out and their hymns of praise silenced. There are also the poorest among us who are crying out. Exposed to the climate crisis, the poor feel even more gravely the impact of the drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves that are becoming ever more intense and frequent. Likewise, our brothers and sisters of the native peoples are crying out. As a result of predatory economic interests, their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, “provoking a cry that rises up to heaven” (Querida Amazonia, 9). Finally, there is the plea of our children. Feeling menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions, today’s young people are crying out, anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems.

Listening to these anguished cries, we must repent and modify our lifestyles and destructive systems. From its very first pages, the Gospel calls us to “repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2); it summons us to a new relationship with God, and also entails a different relationship with others and with creation. The present state of decay of our common home merits the same attention as other global challenges such as grave health crises and wars. “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’, 217).

As persons of faith, we feel ourselves even more responsible for acting each day in accordance with the summons to conversion. Nor is that summons simply individual: “the ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion” (ibid., 219). In this regard, commitment and action, in a spirit of maximum cooperation, is likewise demanded of the community of nations, especially in the meetings of the United Nations devoted to the environmental question.

The COP27 conference on climate change, to be held in Egypt in November 2022 represents the next opportunity for all to join in promoting the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. For this reason too, I recently authorized the Holy See, in the name of and on behalf of the Vatican City State, to accede to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, in the hope that the humanity of the 21st century “will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities” ( ibid., 65). The effort to achieve the Paris goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C is quite demanding; it calls for responsible cooperation between all nations in presenting climate plans or more ambitious nationally determined contributions in order to reduce to zero, as quickly as possible, net greenhouse gas emissions. This means “converting” models of consumption and production, as well as lifestyles, in a way more respectful of creation and the integral human development of all peoples, present and future, a development grounded in responsibility, prudence/precaution, solidarity, concern for the poor and for future generations. Underlying all this, there is need for a covenant between human beings and the environment, which, for us believers, is a mirror reflecting “the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”. [3] The transition brought about by this conversion cannot neglect the demands of justice, especially for those workers who are most affected by the impact of climate change.

For its part, the COP15 summit on biodiversity, to be held in Canada in December, will offer to the goodwill of governments a significant opportunity to adopt a new multilateral agreement to halt the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species. According to the ancient wisdom of the Jubilee, we need to “remember, return, rest and restore”. [4] In order to halt the further collapse of biodiversity, our God-given “network of life”, let us pray and urge nations to reach agreement on four key principles: 1. to construct a clear ethical basis for the changes needed to save biodiversity; 2. to combat the loss of biodiversity, to support conservation and cooperation, and to satisfy people’s needs in a sustainable way; 3. to promote global solidarity in light of the fact that biodiversity is a global common good demanding a shared commitment; and 4. to give priority to people in situations of vulnerability, including those most affected by the loss of biodiversity, such as indigenous peoples, the elderly and the young.

Let me repeat: “In the name of God, I ask the great extractive industries – mining, oil, forestry, real estate, agribusiness – to stop destroying forests, wetlands, and mountains, to stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop poisoning food and people”. [5]

How can we fail to acknowledge the existence of an “ecological debt” (Laudato Si’, 51) incurred by the economically richer countries, who have polluted most in the last two centuries; this demands that they take more ambitious steps at COP27 and at COP15. In addition to determined action within their borders, this means keeping their promises of financial and technical support for the economically poorer nations, which are already experiencing most of the burden of the climate crisis. It would also be fitting to give urgent consideration to further financial support for the conservation of biodiversity. Even the economically less wealthy countries have significant albeit “diversified” responsibilities (cf. ibid., 52) in this regard; delay on the part of others can never justify our own failure to act. It is necessary for all of us to act decisively. For we are reaching “a breaking point” (cf. ibid., 61).

During this Season of Creation, let us pray that COP27 and COP15 can serve to unite the human family (cf. ibid., 13) in effectively confronting the double crisis of climate change and the reduction of biodiversity. Mindful of the exhortation of Saint Paul to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep (cf. Rom 12:15), let us weep with the anguished plea of creation. Let us hear that plea and respond to it with deeds, so that we and future generations can continue to rejoice in creation’s sweet song of life and hope.

____________________________________________________________

[1] Address to F.A.O., 16 November 1970.

[2] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, General Audience, 10 July 2002.

[3] Address to the Meeting “Faith and Science towards COP26”, 4 October 2021,

[4] Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 1 September 2020.

[5] Video Message to Popular Movements, 16 October 2021.