Today is a day with many names. As May Day, it is a day to honour Our Lady. (Perhaps you have heard little children singing on this day, "O, Mary, we crown thee with roses today, Queen of the Angels and Queen of the May.") It is also International Worker's Day. And, in addition, today is Rogation Sunday when we the Church specially express our gratitude for all God's gifts, lift up the working people of the world, and ponder our special relationship with creation and one another. At the end of Mass, we shall have the traditional Procession outside to "beat the bounds" of the parish, as we say thanks to God for all God's benefits and to pray for continued blessings -- and to continue to be blessings to others.
The Pope of Rome released an encyclical entitled Laudato Si' addressing issues related to ecology. It has proven to be an enormously popular and influential document. When I stopped by Ziegler's to pick up a copy, all the English editions were sold. So I bought the Spanish edition and enjoyed the privilege of reading it in the Holy Father's native language. He begins with a canticle and writes, "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..."
The theme of our responsibility for creation is teamed in Scripture with the theme of redemption, which has a cosmic dimension. The Kingdom of God means a radical renewal and rebirth of our world, not a plan for trashing it and being "raptured" elsewhere. This is the world God has made, the world which God loves, and where God has placed us as custodians and trustees. We flourish or flop right here. At Mass in our congregation on high feast days, the priest prays: "You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures." That is not from some liberal manifesto of our age; it is within the lovely eucharistic prayer of Saint Basil from the fourth century!.
As stewards of creation, we have an obligation to pass-on the best world we can to future generations. On the NASA website, one can see some amazing footage, like the earth from the international space station 340 kilometres away. From there it looks almost pristine, but as we examine closer, we see already the ravages of greed and consumerism, and the beginning signs of accelerated climate change. The Pope observes, "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. Our forests and grasslands are disappearing, and the songs of millions of species in rain forests and oceans are being stilled."
We can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution. It is never too late to do the best we can in this crisis. True gratitude will motivate us to be a part of the solution through stewardship and better management of the resources we have from God.
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