Laudato Si’ Action and Reflection for February-April

Written on: March 1, 2022

We gathered on February 14 to show our love for Earth and each other! Our Sisters had lively discussions in their small groups and then shared much of what they have come to understand with each other through this process of careful reflection on the words of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ Care for our Common Home.

The course for the next quarter is as follows:  

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COMMON HOME

“We see incoming sensitivity to the environment and the need to protect nature, along with a growing concern, both genuine and distressing, for what is happening to our planet. Let us review, however cursorily, those questions which are troubling us today and which we can no longer sweep under the carpet. Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.” LS19

 Read, reflect and pray with Chapter 1: Sections I, II and III. Discuss with others using the questions here or printed below, (also at the back of the book if you have that edition), or simply share whatever touched you in the reading.

1. “The continued acceleration of changes affecting humanity and the planet is coupled today with a more intensified pace of life and work which might be called ‘rapidification’,” Pope Francis says. In what ways has your life been negatively affected by “rapidification”?
2. Why is the impact of climate change disproportionately felt by the poor?
3. In some places, water is becoming a “commodity subject to the laws of the market.” Why does Pope Francis say that water cannot be treated like other natural resources – available for purchase for those who can afford it?
4. How does our “throwaway culture” contribute to feelings of hopelessness in the face of our environmental problems? How can we combat this in our lives?

• Watch at least three YouTube videos on Biodiversity. We highly recommend the TED-Ed Talk: “Why is biodiversity so important” by Kim Preshoff. See 2nd Quarter YouTube Suggestions 2022 for titles.

• Consider how I am complicit in perpetuating our “throw away” culture and what I can do to change, i.e what do I do each day? What do I do with old clothing or household items? How do I contribute to daily waste, or better, how do I creatively manage waste?

• Use this Meal Gatha for your Table Grace:

God of Life

With gratitude and joy we receive this food.

Into ourselves we take these changing forms of light

Through which we will be changed:

Other bodies becoming our life;

That there is one body, one life shared by all,

We vow to remember.

“The world is a baby in our arms running a fever, and we have to respond with tenderness and with reciprocity and commitment that comes from that  tenderness.” Rabbi Ariel Bergen (Occasional Papers, Winter 2022).

This entry was posted in With a Heart for Justice and tagged: biodiversity, climate change, commodity, Common Home, Earth, Environment, God, gratitude, Kim Preshoff, Laudato Si!, love, Meal Gatha, natural resources, planet, Pope Francis, protect, rapidification, Reflection, suffering, Ted-Ed Talk, throwaway culture, waste, Water, YouTube