Make the Deserts Bloom

In 1989, September 1st was proclaimed by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I as a ‘Day of Prayer for Creation’ for the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was embraced by other major Christian European churches in 2001, and by Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church in 2015.

When Pope Francis instituted a ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation’, he said that it will offer individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.

The theme for this year is Hope and Act with Creation. This theme is drawn from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:19-25) where he writes, We are well aware that the whole of creation, until this time, has been groaning in labour pains. And not only that, we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we are groaning inside ourselves, waiting with eagerness for our bodies to be set free.

This biblical image pictures the Earth as a mother, groaning as in child birth. In our present age it is clear that we are not relating to the earth as a gift from God, our creator, but rather as resources to be used. Saint Francis of Assisi understood this when he referred to the Earth as our sister and our mother, in his Canticle of Creatures. How can Mother Earth look after us if we do not look after her? Creation is groaning because of our selfishness and the unsustainable actions that harm her.

Today’s Gospel focuses on the first essential step that must be taken: acknowledgement of the sources of the crises. Scribes and pharisees want to know why Jesus’s disciples do not follow the customs of the elders, but eat their meals with unclean hands. In anger, Jesus summons the crowd (and us) and is clear: Hear me, all of you and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person but the things that come from within are what defile. From within the people, from their hearts….

This is an important message in facing ecological crises today. James Gustave Speth, an accomplished environmental lawyer and advocate, known for his important work at the United Nations and in co-founding and leading the Natural Resources Defense Council in the United States, said, in an interview on the BBC in 2013:

I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy. And to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don’t know how to do that.

In Laudato Sí, the encyclical that Pope Francis wrote on care of creation, he quotes Pope Benedict XVI as saying something basically the same: The external deserts in the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast.

How can we make those deserts bloom?

Canon Father Anthony Charlton
Canon Father Anthony CharltonParish Priest