“Hope and act with creation”

Message from the Episcopal Subcommittee for Charitable and Social Action of the Spanish Episcopal Conference on the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

(September 1, 2024)

January 26, 2022

With the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1, the Season of Creation begins, which extends until October 4, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology, whose theme is “ “Hope and act with creation.” The theme refers to the Letter of Saint Paul to the Christians of Rome (Rom 8, 19-25), where the deep meaning of Christian hope is illuminated and presented. Pope Francis has addressed a message for this Day, and the Spanish Church wants to adhere to this event through this message from the Episcopal Subcommittee for Charitable and Social Action of the Spanish Episcopal Conference.

We bishops want to share with believers and society our reflection on hope as an alternative reading of history and human vicissitudes; not illusory, but realistic, the fruit of a lived Gospel; of the realism of a faith that sees the invisible; and anthropocentrism located in the salvation of our common home and those who live in it, from an option for human and integral ecology [1].

Indeed, the Christian vision of the world highlights the central position of man within creation and his relationship with the natural environment, the human being is called to take care of the natural “house”, but without considering himself as the absolute center of the universe, to at the same time he recognizes his interdependence with other living beings and the environment of which he himself is a part. This unique value of the human being in relation to other creatures is part of human dignity itself, which refers at the same time to “the goodness of other created beings, which exist not only as a function of the human being, but also with their own value and, therefore, as gifts that have been entrusted to be guarded and cultivateds. […] From this perspective, 'it is not irrelevant to us that so many species are disappearing, that the climate crisis puts the lives of so many beings at risk.' In fact, it belongs to the dignity of man to care for the environment, taking into account in particular that human ecology that preserves its very existence. [2].

All of this is part of Christian hope, which is presented to society as a true active and alternative proposal, since we cannot forget that said hope is based on the conviction that ““All human beings, created in the image and likeness of God and recreated in the Son made man, crucified and resurrected, are called to grow under the action of the Holy Spirit to reflect the glory of the Father.” [3], developing the gift received of his dignity.

In this dynamic and historical hope we see “the new heavens and the new earth” (Rev 21:1), since the human being, endowed of intelligence and love and guided by the Spirit of God, he has been granted the gift of being able to do good and from it lead all creatures back to their Creator, the questions multiply All creatures advance with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illuminates all things.[4].

THE MOAN AND THE HOPE:

“For we know that to this day the whole creation is groaning and in travail.” (Rom 8, 22).

When the apostle Paul offers us the theological keys to love and hope in the crucified and resurrected Christ, he invites us to listen to a universal groan, which gives reason for a cosmic whole that longs for salvation and that currently suffers awaiting such a birth. surprising as well as new. This groaning, the fruit of sin and its pain, affects all created reality and is present transversally throughout history; and today, this drama becomes suffering in the injustices of the world, in the fratricidal wars that humanity endures and continually contemplates in many places in the world, in the growing contamination of the living environment - the universal home -, in the “mother “earth”, violated and devastated, which thus becomes inhospitable and, in many cases, deadly for the poorest and weakest of humanity.

It is clear that Pauline teaching refers to suffering from the perspective of salvation and in the key of Christian hope. But the inspired Word is active and is continually calling us to sincere conversion in order to bear witness to that hope in the dramas of suffering human flesh, as well as in the living and essential relationship with all of nature of which it is a part, in the that breathes and lives, in which it enjoys and suffers at the same time. Thus, the believer knows that in the resurrection of Christ a single horizon opens up to which we are all drawn, carrying out the new creation; This attraction is a vital process that must be a life transformed by love. The theology of creation reminds us first that everything was created by love and that in that same love is the fullness of all creation and, at the same time, and secondly, it places us as creatures and as such presents us before our eyes the truth that we are vulnerable and, for this reason, we all need everyone and we all await the same fullness of salvation and newness. At the same time, the believer confesses that the last word above all is from God, which is a yes to life based on his love. Now we can understand with all its force the apostle's teaching when he tells us that nothing can separate us from Him.

Meanwhile, the Church, each of us and our communities, must convert to be a witness of hope in the midst of pain and darkness. It is up to her to walk the paths of the good news of a committed hope, embodied in the drama of the human and the natural, for the life of integral ecology and universal brotherhood.

In this theological context, the words of Benedict XVI make full sense when he stated that “It is not science that redeems man. “Man is redeemed by love.” [5]. The love of God, in Christ, from which nothing and no one can ever separate us (Rom 8, 38-39). Thus, the care of creation interrelates the mystery of God with the mystery of the human being, because it goes back to the act of love with which God creates the human being in his image and likeness, as well as to the promise of salvation in Christ. -after the appearance of evil in the world- announced in what has come to be called the “protoevangelium”: “The Lord God said to the serpent: 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and all the wild beasts of the field; you will crawl on your belly and eat dust all your life; I put hostility between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring; "She is she, she will crush your head when you strike her in the heel." (Gen 3, 14s.). With this confidence we join Pope Francis in proclaiming that “In this story not only is man's earthly life at stake, but above all his destiny in eternity is at stake, the eschaton of our beatitude, the Paradise of our peace, in Christ Lord of the cosmos, the Crucified-Resurrected by love” 5. Pastoral mercy: presence and closeness.

BE HOPEFUL BELIEVERS

It is up to us as Christians to live our faith in a committed way informed by the action of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that illuminates us on our pilgrimage, where death already loses its strength and with it our fears, because we trust in a horizon of hope that does not disappoint. In this way, led by the grace of the Spirit, we feel called to a true conversion focused on the living and sincere proposal of new lifestyles in the personal, social, political and economic spheres, as well as in spirituality and experience. of the transcendent and the religious. In this sense, faith is also a task that must be carried out from the vision of creation as a free gift from God the Father for all. “There is a transcendent motivation (theological-ethical) that commits the Christian to promote justice and peace in the world, also through the universal destiny of goods. [7]. Because, as Saint Paul says, the deep longing of creation is to eagerly await the revelation of the children of God (Rom, 8,19).

Our ecclesial community embodies and offers this vision of creation as a gift from God to humanity in its social doctrine, a prominent place from which the care of the common home is proposed as an unavoidable good as the realization and verification of integral ecology. All of this commits us to take firm steps in the interest of caring for creation as something essentially linked to the social concerns of humanity. [8], inseparable from concern for the development of universal brotherhood, as well as the care of the weakest and most vulnerable in our societies. Our faith commits us not to leave future generations exposed to an unfortunate nature and to understand that there will be no true peace without taking care of the relationships between us, with nature and with God.

We must give, today more than ever, a reason for our hope in the midst of the groaning and pain of creatures. The process is supported by the revelation that we have received from Christ, Lord of the cosmos, who has manifested himself to us in the Crucified-Resurrected by Love. This hope, our faith tells us, does not disappoint. Let us bless our God who continues to bless us with all kinds of good things.

+ Bishops of the Episcopal Subcommission for Charitable and Social Action

January 26, 2022

1.- Cf. FRANCISCO. Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, June 27, 2024, nº3.

2.- DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH. Statement Infinite dignity, on human dignity, 28.

3.- Ibidem, 21.

4.- See FRANCISCO. Encyclical Letter Laudato Si', 83.

5.- BENEDICT XVI. Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, 26.

6. FRANCIS. Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, June 27, 2024, No. 8.

7.- Ibidem.

8-.- See FRANCISCO. Encyclical Letter Laudato Si', 49; 139.

MESSAGE FROM HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR
THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE CARE OF CREATION

September 1, 2024

«Wait and act with creation«

February 10, 2022

“Wait and act with creation” is the theme of the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will be celebrated next September 1. It refers to Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans 8:19-25, where the apostle clarifies what it means to live according to the Spirit and focuses on the certain hope of salvation through faith, which is new life in Christ.

1. Let us then start from a simple question, but one that may not have an obvious answer: when we are truly believers, do we how come we have faith? It is not so much because “we believe” in something transcendent that our reason cannot understand, the unattainable mystery of a distant and distant God, invisible and unnameable. Rather, Saint Paul would say, it is because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Yes, we are believers because the same “love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” ( Rm 5.5). That is why the Spirit is now, truly, "the downpayment of our inheritance" ( That the XXX World Day of the Sick —whose final celebration will not take place in Arequipa 1,14), as a provocation to live always oriented towards eternal goods, according to the fullness of the beautiful and good humanity of Jesus. The Spirit makes believers creative, proactive in charity. It introduces them to a great path of spiritual freedom, not exempt, however, from the struggle between the logic of the world and the logic of the Spirit, which have conflicting fruits between them (cf. Ga 5,16-17). We know it, the first fruit of the Spirit, compendium of all the others, it is love. Led, then, by the Holy Spirit, believers are children of God and can address Him by calling Him “Abba!, that is, Father!” ( Rm 8,15), precisely like Jesus, with the freedom of one who no longer falls into the fear of death, because Jesus rose from the dead. Here is the great hope: the love of God has conquered, conquers and will always continue to conquer. Despite the prospect of physical death, for the new man who lives in the Spirit the destiny of glory is already certain. This hope does not disappoint, as the Summon Bull of the next Jubilee. February 10, 2022

2. The existence of the Christian is a life of faith, diligent in charity and overflowing with hope, awaiting the arrival of the Lord in his glory. The “delay” of the parousia, of his second coming, is not a problem; The question is another: "when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS 18.8). Yes, faith is a gift, a fruit of the presence of the Spirit in us, but it is also a task, which must be carried out in freedom, in obedience to the commandment of the love of Jesus. That is the happy hope that we have to witness; Where, when, how? In the dramas of suffering human flesh. Although you dream, now it is necessary daydreaming, animated by visions of love, brotherhood, friendship and justice for all. Christian salvation enters the depth of the world's pain, which not only affects human beings, but the entire universe; to nature itself, oikos of man, his vital environment; understands creation as “earthly paradise”, mother earth, which should be place of joy and promise of happiness for all. Christian optimism is based on a living hope; He knows that everything tends to the glory of God, to the final consummation in his peace, to the bodily resurrection in justice, “from glory to glory.” As time passes, however, we share pain and suffering: the entire creation groans (cf. Rm 8,19-22), Christians groan (cf. vv. 23-25) and the Spirit himself groans (cf. vv. 26-27). Moaning manifests restlessness and suffering, with longing and desire. The moan expresses trust in God and abandonment to his affectionate and demanding company, with a view to the realization of his plan, which is joy, love and peace in the Holy Spirit.

3. The entire creation is involved in this process of a new birth and, groaning, awaits liberation. It is a hidden growth that matures, like “a mustard seed that becomes a great tree” or “yeast in the dough” (cf. Mt 13,31-33). The beginnings are insignificant, but the expected results can be of infinite beauty. As it awaits a birth—the revelation of the children of God—hope is the possibility of standing firm in the midst of adversity, of not becoming discouraged in times of tribulation or in the face of human barbarity. Christian hope does not disappoint, but it does not give false illusions either.; If the groaning of creation, of Christians and of the Spirit is anticipation and expectation of the salvation that is already being realized, we are now immersed in many sufferings that Saint Paul describes as “tribulations, anguish, persecution, hunger, nakedness, dangers, sword” (cf. Rm 8.35). So hope is an alternative reading of history and human vicissitudes; not illusory, but realistic, of the realism of faith that sees the invisible. This hope is patient waiting, like Abraham's not-seeing. I like to remember that great visionary believer who was Joachim of Fiore—the Calabrian abbot “with a gifted prophetic spirit,” according to Dante Alighieri. [2]— who, in a time of bloody struggles, conflicts between the papacy and the empire, crusades, heresies and worldliness of the Church, knew how to indicate the ideal of a new spirit of coexistence among men, based on universal brotherhood and Christian peace, the fruit of the lived Gospel. I proposed that spirit of social friendship and universal brotherhood in All brothers. And this harmony between human beings must also extend to creation, in a “situated anthropocentrism” (cf. Praise God, 67), in the responsibility for a human and integral ecology, the path of salvation for our common home and for us who live in it.

4. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why so much injustice, so many fratricidal wars that cause the death of children, destroy cities, contaminate the living environment of man, mother earth, violated and devastated? Implicitly referring to Adam's sin, Saint Paul states: "We know that the entire creation, up to the present, groans and is in travail" (Rm 8,22). The moral struggle of Christians is related to the “groaning” of creation, because the latter “was subject to vanity” (v. 20). The entire cosmos and every creature groan and long “anxiously” for the current condition to be overcome and the original condition to be reestablished: in effect, the liberation of man also involves that of all other creatures who, in solidarity with the human condition, have been subjected to the yoke of slavery. Like humanity, creation - through no fault of its own - is enslaved and unable to do what it was designed to do, that is, to have lasting meaning and purpose; It is subject to dissolution and death, aggravated by human abuse of nature. But, on the contrary, the salvation of man in Christ is a sure hope also for creation; in fact, “creation also will be freed from the bondage of corruption to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rm 8,21). So, in the redemption of Christ it is possible to contemplate with hope the bond of solidarity between human beings and all other creatures.

5. In the hopeful and persevering expectation of the glorious coming of Jesus, the Holy Spirit keeps the believing community alert and continually instructs it, calling it to the conversion of lifestyles, to oppose human degradation of the environment and express that social criticism that is, above all, testimony of the possibility of change. This conversion consists of moving from the arrogance of those who want to dominate others and nature - reduced to a manipulable object - to the humility of those who care for others and creation. "A human being who tries to take the place of God becomes the worst danger to himself" (Praise God, 73), because Adam's sin destroyed the fundamental relationships by which man lives: the one he has with God, with himself and with other human beings, and the one he has with the cosmos. All these relationships must be, synergistically, restored, saved, “reoriented.” None can be missing. If one is missing, everything fails.

6. Wait and act with creation It means, first of all, joining forces and, walking together with all men and women of good will, contributing to "rethinking together the question of human power, what its meaning is, what its limits are. Because our power has increased frantically in just a few decades. “We have made impressive and astonishing technological progress, and we do not realize that at the same time we have become highly dangerous beings, capable of putting the lives of many beings and our own survival at risk” (Praise God, 28). Uncontrolled power breeds monsters and turns against ourselves. That is why today it is urgent to put ethical limits on the development of artificial intelligence, which, with its capacity for calculation and simulation, could be used to dominate man and nature, instead of putting it at the service of peace and integral development ( cf. Message for the World Day of Peace 2024).

7. "The Holy Spirit accompanies us in life", this was well understood by the boys and girls gathered in St. Peter's Square for their first World Day, which coincided with Holy Trinity Sunday. God is not an abstract idea of ​​infinity, but he is a loving Father, Son, friend and redeemer of every man, and Holy Spirit who guides our steps along the path of charity. Obedience to the Spirit of love radically changes the attitude of man: from “predator” to “cultivator” of the garden. The earth is given to man, but it remains God's (cf. Lv 25,23). This is the theological anthropocentrism of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Therefore, attempting to possess and dominate nature, manipulating it at will, is a form of idolatry. He is the Promethean man, drunk with his own technocratic power, who arrogantly places the earth in a “disgraceful” condition, that is, deprived of the grace of God. Now, if the grace of God is Jesus, dead and resurrected, then what Benedict XVI said is true: «It is not science that redeems man. Man is redeemed by love" (Letter enc. Spe Salvi, 26), the love of God in Christ, from which nothing and no one can ever separate us (cf. Rm 8,38-39). Constantly drawn towards its future, creation is neither static nor closed in on itself. Today, also thanks to the discoveries of contemporary physics, the link between matter and spirit is presented in an increasingly fascinating way for our knowledge.

8. Therefore, the care of creation is not only an ethical issue, but also eminently theological, since it concerns the intertwining of the mystery of man with the mystery of God. It can be said that this interweaving is “generative.”, since it goes back to the act of love with which God creates the human being in Christ. This creative act of God grants and founds the free action of man and all of his ethics: free is precisely his created being. in the image of God who is Jesus Christ, and therefore “representative” of creation in Christ himself. There is a transcendent motivation (theological-ethical) that commits the Christian to promote justice and peace in the world, also through the universal destiny of goods: it is about the revelation of the children of God that creation awaits, moaning as if in labor pains. In this story, not only is man's earthly life at stake, but above all his destiny in eternity, the eschaton of our blessedness, the Paradise of our peace, in Christ Lord of the cosmos, the Crucified-Resurrected for love.

9. Waiting and acting with creation means, therefore, living an incarnate faith, which knows how to enter the suffering and hopeful flesh of people, sharing the expectation of the bodily resurrection to which believers are predestined in Christ the Lord. In Jesus, the eternal Son in human flesh, we are truly children of the Father. Through faith and baptism, life according to the Spirit begins for the believer (cf. Rm 8,2), a holy life, an existence as children of the Father, like Jesus (cf. Rm 8,14-17), since, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ lives in us (cf. Ga 2,20). A life that becomes a song of love for God, for humanity, with and for creation, and that finds its fulfillment in holiness. [3]

Rome, Saint John Lateran, June 27, 2024

FRANCISCO

_____________________________

February 10, 2022 Hope does not disappoint, Bull of convocation of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025 (May 9, 2024).

4.23). We can ask ourselves: why this particular attention of Jesus towards the sick, to such an extent that it also becomes the main work of the mission of the apostles, sent by the Master to announce the Gospel and to heal the sick? (cf. Divine Comedy, Paradise, XII, 141.

[3] The Rosminian priest Clemente Rebora has expressed it poetically: “While creation ascends in Christ to the Father, / In the arcane destiny / everything is labor pain: / how much to die so that life is born! / but from one Mother, who is divine, / one happily comes to the light: / life that love produces in tears, / and, if she longs, here below it is poetry; / but only holiness fulfills the song” (cf. Curriculum vitae, “Poetry and sanctity”: Poems, prose and translations, Milan 2015, p. 297).

27/06/2024

January 26, 2022