Some people might consider concern and care for Mother Earth something new and trendy. Far from it!  As far back as 1877, Gerard Manley Hopkins was deeply touched by the violence done to all creation by people.  This is clear in his most famous work, GOD’S GRANDEUR.

As a child, he basked in the beauty of his home environment in Hampstead’s Oak Hill Park. Large trees were his personal friends, especially the elms.  Agile and delighted, he would scale an elm and sit for hours viewing creation.  He sketched trees noting small details, uniting himself with their uniqueness.

In 1879 he wrote BINSEY POPLARS. In the poem, he laments the felling of a line of trees in a village near Oxford.  He wrote about it as a  brutal event doing irreparable damage, rendering the human eye sightless, and depriving future generations of nature’s exquisite beauty.

According to Pope Francis, practical concerns are not enough to motivate saving the planet. We need the spirit of Francis of Assisi, which transcends all material and practical considerations.  We need an openness to see an “integral ecology” in all creation.  Nothing stands alone.  Reasoning humans, moved by pious reflection and a sense of adoration, must connect with all creation in awe and wonder.  Feeling intimately united with all that exists, we become aware of God’s presence sustaining and renewing the face of the earth.

Examining present trends should heighten our sense of urgency as a world community to change our ways of drawing sustenance from Mother Earth. (Laudato Si’,  12-16)    These thoughts harken back to the 12^th and 13^th Centuries when Francis of Assisi and his disciple, Bonaventure, penned their great thoughts.  They reflect the thoughts in GENESIS and PSALMS. Our present concern only continues an age old theme.

What in nature draws you to its beauty?  How do plan to respond to show your concern for Mother Earth?

Sources for Further Study

Bonaventure, Saint. Bonaventure: “The Soul’s Journey into God,” “The Tree of Life,” “The Life of St. Francis.” Translated with an introduction by Ewert Cousins. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. This is a useful and clear presentation of three of Saint Bonaventure’s most important writings.

Bougerol, Jacques Guy. Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure. Translated by José de Vinck. Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964. A helpful guide to Bonaventure’s principal works.

Cullen, Christopher M. Bonaventure. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. A concise volume in the publisher’s Great Medieval Thinkers series, introducing Bonaventure’s thought for a student and general audience. Bibliography, index.

Gilson, Étienne. The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure. Translated by Dom Illtyd Trethowan and F. J. Sheed. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1938. Gilson’s scholarly analysis enhances his careful presentation of the historical context of Bonaventure’s life and works.

In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. – Peter 1:3

As we enter these final, holy days of Lent, the Sisters of Notre Dame  wish you and your family a blessed Easter season and a joyous spring.  We join the church in praying an Easter Prayer: 

God our Father, creator of all, today is the day of Easter joy.  This is the morning on which the Lord appeared to those who had begun to lose hope and opened their eyes to what the scriptures foretold:  that first He must die, and then He would rise and ascend into His Father’s glorious presence.  May the risen Lord breathe on our minds and open our eyes that we may know Him in the breaking of the bread, and follow Him in His risen Life.

Amen

From the Mass for Easter Sunday Opening Prayer

I find myself very disgruntled with all the mudslinging going on among candidates running for the presidency.   It finally occurred to me that I was letting that behavior affect my own attitudes.  I  quickly realized I needed to choose another way– focus on the positive.  Holy week asks us to stay with Jesus through all his challenges.  We need to look deeper, beyond just the rituals of our faith, beyond appearances of people, and to examine the heart.   During Lent we heard at Liturgy  the scriptures where  Jesus chides the scribes and Pharisees for their preoccupation with external observances.  The  Pharisees and scribes were looking around at what other people were doing.  They were reminding them to be better while at the same time, criticizing and lashing out at the most vulnerable and not paying attention to their own attitudes.  Another mistake they made, perhaps that was their first mistake:   worrying about what others are doing, instead of challenging themselves to be more faithful.  So I am determined to not let the mudslinging throughout the presidential campaign suck me into heated arguments and divisive statements.

I forgot which saint said this, but she said you cannot even have the unkind thought, because the unkind thought becomes the unkind word, or worse yet, unkind deed.  Oh my – I have my work cut out for me.  I will try, this Holy Week, to walk with Jesus, coming closer each day to the reality he has in mind for me.  No wonder the church invited us into the Lenten season by asking for a renewal  through prayer, fasting and giving.   Without realizing it,  we can acquire some  thinking and behaviors  that keep us from seeing how God is present and active in our lives.  We may arrive at the Sacred Triduum not having been successful in all of our Lenten resolutions, but having come a little closer to allowing God to break through, into our lives a little more.   That is what prayer, fasting and giving are intended to do;  to release us from preoccupation with things, thoughts, and actions, that hold us back from recognizing how much our God loves us!   That love walks the walk of Holy week and finds that greatest love of all on Easter.

Blessings on your Holy Week.

Dorothy Fuchs, SND,  was a high school teacher for twenty-nine years.  When teaching World Culture, religion and U.S. History  Sr. Dorothy tried to give her students the sense of the inherent dignity of people of all cultures, the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate events in history, and the realization of the  gifts of our Catholic faith, a faith that teaches that all people are children of God.  For fourteen years Sister Dorothy was a pastoral minister. For twelve if those years Sister served on the staff of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, where as staff liaison to the Social Concerns Committee she worked with the committee to promote awareness of current social justice.

Recently a group of Sisters of Notre Dame  gathered at Bethany, the retreat center at the Provincial Center  in Chardon, OH  to reflect on LAUDATO SI’, Pope Francis’ Encylcical on Care for God’s Creation.   The discussion starters were taken from eminent scholars  commenting on the gift of creation and the care we must take of our common home, the earth. There was something so familiar to me about the day.

Deep in my memory I relived the experience of lying in my backyard on summer nights. As a teenager, I was overwhelmed by the vastness of everything, the myriad stars scattered through the heavens, the timing of the seasons, the order of nature. The whole world was all so real, yet beyond absorption.  From ages six to fourteen, I trekked to and from  school through an amazing neighborhood replete with vast lawns and ancient, sturdy  trees.  A mile walk each way at least twice a day gave me lots of time to think.

The winters were  tough with icy challenges, yet mysterious beautiful.  Spring and fall revealed a more  delicate and powerful beauty.  And summer, finally summer.  It seemed to bring all creation back to the beginning, that place in my heart calling me once again to revel in its splendor.  What amazes me is that I was so aware and I appreciated it all so much.   Creation has that power at any age.  My mind never dwelt in the pragmatic.  I put no price tag on anything.  Creation was a great gift.  Nature was grand and mysterious, calling me to see that same beauty in my relationship with God, with my neighbors and all creation.   There  is an innate love of  the universe in every person.  I can’t prove it; I just know it.  I know it from deep within me.  Time and circumstances may dim our consciousness of it, but it is there, strong and beckoning.

Pope Frances calls us to a new and renewed awareness of how interdependent we are with nature.  I rejoice in trying to absorb his urgent call to remember what we may have temporarily forgotten; we have a common home to love and protect.  We have the privilege of walking through this  masterpiece we call home.   We are called to see it again with new vision, new generosity and a true sense of awe.  How can we not respond to think of practical and careful actions to preserve, care for and protect our our common home?

Notre Dame Sister Mary Deborah Carlin is retired from many years as a high school teacher and parish Religious Education Director.  She currently is ministering as a volunteer at Bethany Retreat Center in Chardon, OH.

On Gaudete Sunday the world awoke to good news which people may call  a miracle.  Approximately two hundred individual nations listened to one another.  They mirrored ever so surely or tenuously (only time will tell) Pope Francis’ call to listen to one another.  The Paris Summit on Climate Change  “recognized that we are compelled to heed” the universal cry for help.  (Laudato Si 15)

This listening and consensus were lauded on the BBC web site as “historic.” Key elements of the agreement include:  real numbers; specific goals to be accomplished within a definite time frame; using Mother Nature as a gauge; setting specific rules of accountability and transparency, and most amazing of all, providing “climate finance.” According to this last provision, rich countries are to help poor ones to “adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energy.” The poorest countries in the world have suffered the most from climate change.  Ironically, they are the least able to finance the necessary changes.  And it is imperative that they participate.  It is an “all in” scenario. Climate unites the human family.

Another remarkable aspect of the agreement is that it is visionary. The summit members look to the twenty-second century as a time to reach goals.  This both places hope in the future and trusts the next three generations to keep the plan moving in its proposed direction.

All these elements parallel the thoughts presented in Chapter three of LAUDATO SI.   After defining some of the “human roots” of our present crisis, Pope Francis assures the world that the very developments in technology and science of the past can help in correcting our present situation and impacting the future.  What is needed now is “a distinctive way of thinking, policies, an educational program, a lifestyle, and spirituality,” (LS 111) which together resist a solely technocratic paradigm.  Without this universal transformation of mind and heart, efforts to address isolated problems will prove futile.  Pope Francis reflects confidence in the sense of the people (LS 113).

Wisdom nudges the human families into realizing that the future holds little hope if we remain in the status quo.  The Spirit of God hovers over the world helping humankind to help ourselves.  With such vision and hope Christmas and the light and warmth it brings revives not only our spirits but the sense the world working together to preserve our common home is possible.

Notre Dame Sister Mary Deborah Carlin is retired from many years as a high school teacher and parish Religious Education Director.  She currently is ministering as a volunteer at Bethany Retreat Center in Chardon, OH.

The Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland in collaboration with John Carroll University, Notre Dame College, Ursuline College, COAR(Community Oscar Arnulfo Romero), and the Interreligious Task Force on Central America (IRTF) ask us to join with them on December 2, 2015  to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the martyrdom of the four churchwomen–Maura Clarke, MM;  Ita Ford, MM; Dorothy Kazel, OSU; and Jean Donovan–who were brutally murdered for their work and commitment to the poor during the civil war in El Salvador.  The following blog was posted several years and bears repeating today:

It was a night like any other in San Salvador in 1980.  The Cleveland mission team working in LaLibertad was  well aware of the dangers involved in staying in the war-torn county.  Lay missionary Jean Donovan knew particularly well the danger she was in.  A few weeks earlier she wrote to her friend: “The Peace Corps left today and my heart sank low.  The danger is extreme and they were right to leave…Now I must assess my own position, because I am not up for suicide.  Several times I have decided to leave. I almost could except for the children, the poor bruised victims of adult lunacy.  Who would care for them?  Whose heart would be so hard as to favor the reasonable thing in a sea of tears and helplessness?  Not mine, dear friend, not mine.” (Jean Donovan, lay missioner murdered in El Salvador, 1980 as quoted in Peacemaking:Day by Day published by Pax Christi USA)

On the night of December 2, 1980,  Cleveland Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan took a trip to the airport that was absolutely necessary.  Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford were coming to help out at the mission during the Christmas season when many missionaries were returning to their home countries for a visit.  National Guardsmen abducted the women on their return trip from the La Libertad airport. They were physically tortured, shot to death and left in a common grave.

On December 2, we recall  their unwavering conviction that Jesus,  our Incarnate God, became flesh to remind us that loving our neighbor as ourselves is the passage way to eternal life.  They, like Jesus not only denounced evil, violence, fear, hopelessness, but, like Him, announced salvation by announcing an alternative vision of life– all are made in the image and likeness of God, all are included, all have potential.  Their lives remind us our strength is in the great law of love–loving God, our neighbor, ourselves, the earth–seeing all as connected.   Bringing about love refreshes–can be trusted–gives wisdom to the simple–endures–is the justice of the scriptures.  It was their truth, their strength.

Wouldn’t it be great if people said of us this Advent what comes to mind when we think of the Salvadoran martyrs:   They had their hearts set on having the reign of God.  They wanted their lives to be a blessing as they searched.  They just couldn’t seem to rest until there is right in the world and justice and equality for all.  They seemed content with their greatness and their smallness.  They seemed hungry for new ways to convey the truth and work for justice. They were creators of peace.   They left love where ever they went –it is genuine and lasting. (Beatitudes paraphrased)

O give thanks to the Lord for God’s love is everlasting,
Who alone has done such great wonders.

Who led the Pilgrims to this spacious land,
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who gave us a nation of freedom and law,
For God’s love is everlasting.

For trees and rivers, for mountains and meadows, for birds and all creatures,
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who fed us bountifully, with every kind of good food
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who brought peoples of all nations to our land,
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who led the people in search of greater freedom and justice,
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who revealed God’s love for us in Christ Jesus,
For God’s love is everlasting.

Who feeds us in Word and sacrament with rich food,
For God’s love is everlasting.   

For desires to grow and become our very best,
We praise the Lord, the maker of all.

*******************************************

Dorothy Fuchs, SND,  was a high school teacher for twenty-nine years.  When teaching World Culture, religion and U.S. History  Sr. Dorothy tried to give her students the sense of the inherent dignity of people of all cultures, the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate events in history, and the realization of the  gifts of our Catholic faith, a faith that teaches that all people are children of God.  For fourteen years Sister Dorothy was a pastoral minister. For twelve if those years Sister served on the staff of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, where as staff liaison to the Social Concerns Committee she worked with the committee to promote awareness of current social justice.

“As Christians we wish to contribute to resolving the ecological crisis which humanity is presently experiencing. In doing so, we must first rediscover in our own rich spiritual patrimony the deepest motivations for our concern for the care of creation.” Pope Francis

Pope Francis is inviting all Catholics to participate in an annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, beginning Sept. 1, 2015. The day offers individuals and communities “a precious opportunity to renew our personal participation in this vocation as custodians of creation.”

While on retreat several weeks ago my directress invited me to pray with Psalm 104.   The metaphors used by the early Hebrew author to describe the mysteries of creation suddenly gave me much laughter. In verses 6 to 9 the writer describes how the oceans came to be in their present location. “The ocean covered it (the earth) like a garment;….. At your roar they (the water) took flight; at the sound of your thunder they fled.   They (the oceans) rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them. You set a limit they could not pass….” I was amused at how the early Hebrews understood creation.  Maybe the poetic interpretation of the  early Israelites’ sense that all of nature is regulated by God’s decree has more meaning today than we first realize.

Pope Francis in his recent encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” wrote “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or secondary aspect of our Christian existence”.

Each of us has an obligation to nurture our world.   Does that mean buying less, and reusing more?   Perhaps.  Or perhaps  we have not made sufficient efforts to conserve on our use of energy, whether by lowering air conditioning a degree or two,  dressing warmer in the winter months to conserve on heat or turning off the motor of the car, while waiting for someone.  Each of us can explore our own habits to discover ways we can be more ecologically sensitive.

If we fail in this challenge, the burden shifts more heavily on the poor, who have fewer alternatives.   More and more of the resources of poorer nations are being depleted, whether in places such as cooper mines in Chile, or the rainforests of Brazil.   The burden shifts to the planet itself.  We hear researchers continually report about the heating up of our planet, reaching as far north to the Arctic region to individual regions throughout the world that continue to encounter unprecedented higher temperatures.

Our voices must be heard on national and local environmental issues, whether on the recent decision to open the Arctic region of Alaska to drilling for oil, or on efforts to protect our water for healthy living for all in the Great Lakes region.   The grandeur and mystery of creation continues to give us great joy. How is God calling each of us to protect what God has given us?   What one step can each of us take?

Pope Francis is calling us today and especially September 1 as World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation to pray for this pressing social issue. Let us in the words of Psalm 104, verse 24, praise God for the gift of creation, and seek God’s help.   “How varied are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creation.”

Dorothy Fuchs, SND,  was a high school teacher for twenty-nine years.  When teaching World Culture, religion and U.S. History  Sr. Dorothy tried to give her students the sense of the inherent dignity of people of all cultures, the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate events in history, and the realization of the  gifts of our Catholic faith, a faith that teaches that all people are children of God.  For fourteen years Sister Dorothy was a pastoral minister. For twelve if those years Sister served on the staff of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, where as staff liaison to the Social Concerns Committee she worked with the committee to promote awareness of current social justice.

“We hold these truths to be self- evident that all [people] are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”  These words from the Declaration of Independence clearly state the basic rights of all people and are a part of the document that established the United States of America.  Men and women gave their lives fighting for these rights so that others might freely live by them.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, France gave to the United States the statue we now call “The Statue of Liberty”.  Originally named “The Mother of Exiles”, Lady Liberty stands in New York Harbor as a welcoming beacon to those who come to our shores looking for freedom and a better life.  She is recognized as the universal symbol of democracy.  The last lines of a sonnet by Emma Lazarus are carved in her base:

                                                Give me your tired, your poor, 

                                                 Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

                                                The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

                                                Send these, the homeless tempest tossed to me,

                                                I lift my lamp beside the golden door.   

Many came from around the world to settle in America…and they kept coming.  Through good times and bad, generation after generation, they built the United States and brought her to where she is today. This great country was built by immigrants and the descendants of immigrants.  We are all descendants of immigrants, all of us, except maybe the Native Americans.

People are still “tired, poor and yearning to be free”.   Those who are knocking today are mostly women and children who are fleeing for their lives.  They knock, not only after a long perilous journey by sea, but also after a very long walk through jungle and desert, at the risk of their lives because they believe in the promise of America. 

 Many not coming into New York Harbor are usually trafficked, for a large fee, over the southern borders from Central and South America, from Africa, Asia and Europe. They are looking for asylum and the same basic rights our foremothers and fathers were hoping for when they made the journey to the New World.  They are yearning to live their lives in safety, with dignity and free from fear.

But the ‘golden door’ is not so easily opened.  Instead, after crossing the borders, the refugees are asked for their papers, which they had no way of knowing they needed.  If they have no papers or no relatives to be released to, these men, women and children are detained until it can proved they qualify for refugee status.   In most cases they are not in a much better situation than what they left…unless others reach out to them with open hearts and hands. 

 I have been teaching a group of young Guatamalan women how to make jewelry.  I meet with them once a month when they come to check in at the Ohio Immigration Court in Cleveland.  They do not speak English, but they understand more each time I meet them.  These women are intelligent and industrious, but are caught in the cycle of official papers.  My hope and theirs too is that sometime in the near future they will be accepted to stay here never to return to the danger they fled.

Given the opportunity, how can you reach out a helping hand?

Sister Laura Wingert, SND, was a high school art,  English and drama teacher for more than 25 years.  14 years ago, she retired and currently serves the Sisters of Notre Dame Community in Chardon, OH as a potter, nature photographer and Human Trafficking activist.  She represents the Sisters of Notre Dame as a member of the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking based in Cleveland.

Some years ago, a retreat director, in fact Sr. Melannie Svoboda, SND,introduced me to a children’s book entitled Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth.  I got a copy after the retreat and pull it out from time to time.  It includes passages about how nature prays:

…trees reach for heaven in prayer,

…rocks are still, silent and enduring,

…streams reflect God’s beauty, join other streams in community, laugh and dance and leap through the air,

…winds whisper and sigh in prayer to God

Such reflections help to ground my faith in the goodness of the world.

But sometimes when I see trees lashed by fierce storms, rocks become molten lava paths of destruction, waters rush along stealing homes and irreplaceable mementos, landslides wash away whole neighborhoods, or violent winds leave behind a path of sorrow and ruin, I wonder what has become of those peaceful prayers.

Is nature trying to get our attention?  Are these events messengers sent by God to remind us that we must learn to live in harmony with nature, though it is beyond the control that we seem to have over so many other things in life?  Do they model for us the way we cry out to God in times of danger and turmoil?

Yet even after the worst events, a silence, a peacefulness returns.  Out of destruction often come new life, new memories, new relationships. The story never ends with death, but with Resurrection.  As the Grandad in the book says, “Each living thing gives its life to the beauty of all life, and that gift is its prayer.” (p. 12)

May the One whom” even wind and sea obey” (Mark 4:41) draw us into an ever-deepening relationship with God, each other and the cosmos around us.

Reference:  Grandad’s Prayers of the Earth, by Douglas Wood, illustrated by P. J. Lynch, Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.

Sister Emilia  Castelletti, SND is a theology teacher at Notre Dame Cathedral Latin High School in Chardon, OH.