Mercy,
A Chance
for Life

 

Reconciliation with the Earth and the Universe

Day 15: Sunday, week 3

 

Listen to the Cry of the Earth

Being instruments of reconciliation leads us beyond ourselves and our communities to help mend the ruptures of life across planet earth.

In these times when the devastation of our earth is imminent because of our carelessness and treatment of her body as an object to be exploited, the urgency of listening to the voice of the earth is all around us. This is not to speak glibly of the earth as the angry voice of Mother Nature when natural disasters befall us. It is to listen to the voice of this mother crying from within her being on behalf of all her children. A poignant example can be found in the tenth chapter of the second book of Esdras in the Old Testament. Here, the prophet Esdras, speaking to a mother, who has gone out in the dark of night to grieve for her only child who has died, offers these words to her:

Ask the earth and she will tell that it is she who ought to mourn over so many who have come into being upon her. From the beginning all have been born of her, and others will come; and lo, almost all go to perdition, and a multitude of them will come to doom. Who then ought to mourn the more, she who lost so great a multitude or you who are grieving for one alone (2 Esd 10:8, 9-11)?

We must lament with Mother Earth for what has been and for what is being lost by our greed.

Reflection

  • Where do you see harm inflicted on our planet?
  • What actions can I and others take to ensure that our government carries out the commitment it made at the Paris Conference on Climate Change (2015)?
 

Prayer

God of love, show us our place in this world
as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth,
for not one of them is forgotten in your sight.

(Pope Francis, A Christian Prayer in Union with Creation, Laudato Si, 2015, p. 118)

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