Today is Earth Day, and I wanted to honor the 50th annual celebration of Earth Day with a reflection following the theme of “Creation Care”. Many Christians use this term to refer to our commitments to environmental stewardship because it acknowledges the relationship between us, the whole Earth, and our shared Creator. Some of you here at Parkview have expressed interest in Creation Care, through sustainable practices, recycling, gardening, and other means.

The way we care for the environment is complex. It can be personal, political, communal, and spiritual. For a spiritual perspective, I like to turn to my brother in Christ, Pope Francis, in his publication Laudate Si: On Care for Our Common Home. The encyclical is 82 pages long, so I will share a few highlights for our devotion today.

67. We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which
    grants man “dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct
    interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. Although it is true that we Christians have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures… Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations. “The earth is the Lord’s” (Ps 24:1); to him belongs “the earth with all that is within it” (Dt 10:14). Thus God rejects every claim to absolute ownership: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23).

84. Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe
    speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God.

95. The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for the good of
    all. If we do not, we burden our consciences with the weight of having denied the existence of others. That is why the New Zealand bishops asked what the commandment “Thou shall not kill” means when “twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that robs the poor nations and future generations of what they need to survive”.

As you reflect on these readings, I invite you to ask yourself these two questions:

1. For whom, and for what, can you pray today?
2. How is God calling you to care for Creation?

Blessings in your prayer and action!
Veronica