Vatican City, 2 September 2015 (VIS) –
Yesterday afternoon in St. Peter's Basilica the Holy Father presided
at the liturgy for the first World Day of Prayer for the Care of
Creation, instituted by the Pope on 10 August and which will from now
on be celebrated by the Catholic Church on 1 September, as in the
Orthodox Church. Numerous pilgrims and representatives of the Roman
Curia participated in the liturgy, and many people and communities
throughout the world have responded to the Pope's appeal to renew our
vocation as custodians of creation.
The homily was pronounced by Fr.
Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Papal Household. After citing
the biblical sources, from Genesis to the Book of Psalms, which
describe the relationship between the human being and the world
created by God, Fr. Cantalamessa went on to focus on the figure of
St. Francis of Assisi and his “Canticle of the Creatures”, which
the Pope chose as the basis for his encyclical “Laudato si'”,
“The saint's words, which define the
sun as beautiful, the brother fire as beautiful, the stars as bright
and beautiful, are an echo of that 'And God saw everything that he
had made, and behold, it was very good', from the account of
creation”, he commented. “The fundamental sin against creation,
that precedes all others, is not listening to His voice, condemning
it irretrievably, as St. Paul would say, to vanity, to
insignificance. … Francis shows us the way to a radical change in
our relationship with creation: it consists of substituting
possession with contemplation. He describes a different way of
enjoying its fruits, which is contemplating them instead of
possessing them”.
“Certainly, Francis did not have a
global and worldwide vision of the ecological problem, but rather a
local, immediate view”, he added. “He thought about what he and,
eventually, his brother friars, could do. Here too, however, he
teaches us. A slogan currently in vogue is 'think globally, act
locally'. What is the point in taking issue with those who pollute
the atmosphere, the oceans and the forests, if we do not hesitate in
throwing onto a riverbank or into the sea a plastic bag that will
remain there for centuries if no-one retrieves it; if I throw away
what I no longer want wherever I wish, on the streets or in the
forest; or if I deface the walls of my city?”.
“The protection of creation, like
peace, is 'handcrafted', as our Holy Father would say, starting with
ourselves”, he concluded. “Peace begins with you, as is often
repeated in the messages for World Day of Peace; similarly, the
protection of creation begins with you. It was what an Orthodox
representative affirmed during the ecumenical assembly in Basel in
1989 on 'Justice, peace and the protection of creation'. “Without a
change in the human heart, environmentalism has no hope of success”.
No comments:
Post a Comment