Apostles for Today - January 2020

UAC 

Monthly Reflection, 

January 2020 

-

“The earth is like a sister with whom we share our life.
The earth is like a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us”
  (Laudato Sí, 1).

As an environmental chemist, I always say that the level of care we give to creation is a measuring bar of sin and of grace. It is a special perspective from which we see how man thinks, acts and lives. I dealt with the theme of the relationship between faith and ecology in three conferences, one and international conference and the other two national conferences, as well as in a monograph. These were conferences requested by fellow scientists – even non-believers – in which science questioned Sacred Scripture and listened to the words of our founder, Saint Vincent Pallotti.

Laudato Sí opens with a broad panorama of the suffering inflicted by man on the planet; it is not an arid and external complaint, rather it is an objective analysis shared by scientists of all faiths, cultures and backgrounds. It is both a denunciation and an invitation to “ecological conversion” for the very survival of the human race. The meeting between nature and our faith re-lives the event of the Epiphany. The Magi represent the wisdom that questions and that marries itself with science (they seek God and they want to meet with Him to adore Him); Herod, on the other hand, represents a search for knowledge that produces technology that, in turn, is influenced by idolatry (knowing in order to exploit and to dominate). Immediately, we must ask ourselves which side are we attracted to, each one of us with the actions, the choices and the attitudes of our lives. So, how do we position ourselves before the protection of creation, the discovery of the mysteries of nature, the search for the common good and for the good of every creature.

The first chapter of Laudato Sí carries the mark of Pope Francis and it was developed by people of science, who know, each one in his/her own field of studies the “state of the planet” and the various scenarios that await us as a consequence of the political decisions and common actions of recent decades. Pollution has existed since the beginning of humanity, but for millennia the moral question of the production and dissemination of waste (urban, biological, industrial, radioactive, chemical…) has never been asked. At most, humanity simply moved the problem from some areas to other areas. For example, the air quality of western cities is much cleaner than twenty or fifty years ago. But western countries have passed on and continue to pass on ‘dirty’ technologies and waste to countries in the developing world. The problem is amplified by the increase in the global population during the last century, by an out-of-control recourse to energy sources and by the over-production of goods that are passed off as being primary and essential needs. This humanism, which is “so little human” disguises a vision of humanity that is characteristic of selection, that is, it is “only the strongest” who will survive, because the world is simply too small to contain all of us and at the same time satisfy everyone’s expectations and well-being. The so-called developing countries pressure the so-called developed countries not only because of greater demography, but also because of a desire for development and access to better living standards.

All of this contributes to the race for over?production and hyper-consumerism. The most evident and dramatic results of this approach are the changes in climate, the increasing pollution of all of the environmental elements (air, water, soil, food), the appearance of new diseases, a shortage of water and the loss of biodiversity. And yet, authoritative advocated of the scientific and political worlds do not believe all this evidence, attributing it to natural fluctuations in the climate, and putting their trust in man’s capacity to self-regulate, that somehow humanity will always know how to find appropriate solutions. But, in truth, they consciously do not listen, they do not see nature and the results of the forecast study models that have been published in the thousands in scientific journals, and also, they do not accept and do not believe in the reports drawn up by experts and by international organizations.

Diverse theologians and philosophers have spoken out, repeatedly warning against treating the earth like a landfill dump. But such warnings seem in vain when faced with the powerful and the rich of this world who view nature as an evil monster which takes revenge by means of environmental disasters and who is not like a mother who is exhausting her strength and resources to sustain and maintain her own children. It is into this context that Laudato Sí comes, a superficial reading of which appears to give credence to those who reduce the faith of Pope Francis to a vision and an action that is horizontal, in which God remains behind us and that the spiritual (vertical) dimension moves us to go out (of oneself, out of the churches) in order to look on the world and on the other, and that it remains only an interior disposition and does not need to find occasions and forms of expression in taking initiatives to go out to meet all that is other than us.

It is from this that the criticisms that define him as a communist pope, an ecologist and an unrealistic pacifist, which are put forward by the powerful of the earth, and even by people within the Church herself; on the opposite side, then, is the concerned acclaim of the “green” fundamentalism, which advocates a return to understanding nature in a deterministic and/or pantheistic sense. They mirror the two “heresies of our century” which Francis outlined in Gaudete et Exultate. Man puts himself at the center of the universe in order to dominate it and exploit it, molding it “in his own image and likeness”, according to a vision that, because it is only focused on itself, ends up taking the place of God the Creator. So it is that man no longer knows who he is, neither where he has come from nor where he is going to, he creates himself and without points of reference. The relationship with God disappears, as does his relationship with his fellow man and with himself. A society and an individual that are turned in on themselves are inexorably devoted to their own goals and aims.

At this juncture it can happen that even theology which should illuminate and ignite the flame of faith, hope and charity, in some cases is not able to get out from the universities and “be broken into pieces”, making itself understandable to and digestible by the common man, close to humanity that Jesus meets today on its streets, in the factories and in the mines, in the offices and in the fields, in the houses and in the shanty-towns.

But the vision and the action of Pope Francis is something completely different. He, following precisely in the wake of another Francis, sings of God as Father, Brother, Intimate Companion of the soul, Wisdom and Freedom, Power that is translated into mercy, communion and joy. In a word, beauty: beauty that reflects itself in the world, in the life of everyone, created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus is the intimate companion of every man, he died for everyone. He saves them where they live and how they are, each one with his/her own baggage of nobility and misery, virtue and sin, just as Saint Vincent intuitively and experimentally understood of himself and every other person.

In return Jesus asks us to believe, not to stop at what we perceive to be our limits, but to commit ourselves, to spend ourselves, to give of ourselves. This implies that we see our neighbor precisely in him/her who stands before us, a riches and a gift to be welcomed and to care for; so it must be also with nature, with the universe and our earth as a place to be cultivated and made fruitful like the Garden of Eden. Every creature, even the stones, the black holes and the insects are the work of God and, as such, precious. They are, in their extraordinary variety, an entirety, a home and a mother. We are made of the dust of the earth, into which God breathed a breath of eternal life; matter and spirit find a synthesis and a point of convergence which Christ has made his own. The Word became flesh.

The relationship with God then is to be nourished every day; by means of prayer, interior silence (and also exterior silence, like turning off our cell phones – why not!!), celebration that is stripped of all triumphalism and ritualism, with spaces and times reserved for Him and for our meeting with Him, in adoration and in the face of everyone we meet. It is only from this starting point that our “going out” in order to encounter others is found.

Returning to the image of the Epiphany, the Magi represent “the people”, the men and women and countries of every culture, class and faith who seek “the One that they do not know” but who is closer to them than they can imagine. Christians and all people of good-will belong to that group and they are bearers of other people. They are not those who isolate themselves because of fear, who arm themselves, who discard and reject. The Pope is the prophetic voice of God who calls on us to “get involved”, to get our hands dirty, and to also risk our “holiness” for the “Jesus who is hidden and rejected”, who is in us and just outside of us. He urges us to make use of public places, politics, the schools of formation, the times and spaces for education, the mass media, the theaters, culture, homes and churches, to start a process of integral human progress, where God creates history with man. This true ecology is the natural face of “Catholicity”, of a universality that includes all people and all of humankind, it is the holiness of next door, lived in daily interaction with other people. “I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant.

Very often it is a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness” (GE 7), the new apostolate or – in present terminology – the new evangelization. Thus, the person returns to being the manager, the caretaker of the land that God confidently entrusts to him, like the five talents in the parable and just as He entrusted Jesus to Mary and Joseph and, as he entrusts children to their parents. Nature, like every neighbor, is not an enemy, rather it is another who completes us and who helps us to fulfill ourselves here on earth, according to the plan to which God has called us, and for the Kingdom, God’s destiny for us. The earth is our home, albeit not our definitive home. God creates history with man, every man, and man with God, in time, and that history will be fulfilled at the end of time. Saint Vincent Pallotti was a man of his time, but it is also certain that he too is a spiritual son of Saint Francis. He searched for and practiced a spiritual harmony with nature of which he felt part. The sun, the moon, the seas, the winds, animals and plants incessantly praise their Creator, giving back all to Him and to His beauty and goodness and inspiring joy and a song of blessing. Vincent rediscovers this dimension and he keeps himself humble, materially poor as well as poor in spirit; and yet he is rich, in need of nothing more than to receive and give love, becoming the voice of all creatures who, with one voice, sing the glory of the Lord. We too could sing the canticle of creation in the Benedicite of the Founder, we could sing it with our everyday lives, where we are and how we are.

For personal and community prayer and reflection
1. Do we think and live “in the world” as in a home to be cared for, to help it grow and beautify it,       giving glory to God for everything?
2. Do we want to move from the way of solidarity to the way of synodality with every person, and   with Christ living in every person, that everybody and everything may be “the glory of God”?

Angelo Cecinato

The Community of Quinta Dimensione

Member of the NCC Italy

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Segretariato Generale, Unione dell’Apostolato Cattolico

Piazza San Vincenzo Pallotti 204, 00187 Roma, Italia uacgensec@gmail.com