The New Encyclical by Pope
Francis, Laudato Si', On Care for our Common Home marks Francis as a prophet for our time,
but he also calls everyone who pays attention to live in a prophetic way. I think that this means, each person needs to pay closer
attention to the way they live as creatures, interdependent upon one another and
the natural world.
In Chapter IV of the Encyclical, Joy and Peace, section #222, Pope Francis has this to say:
Christian spirituality
proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a
prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of
the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in
different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that
“less is more”. A constant flood of new consumer goods can baffle the heart and
prevent us from cherishing each thing and each moment. To be serenely present
to each reality, however small it may be, opens us to much greater horizons of
understanding and personal fulfillment. Christian spirituality proposes a growth
marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy
with little. It is a return to that simplicity which allows us to stop and
appreciate the small things, to be grateful for the opportunities which life
affords us, to be spiritually detached from what we possess, and not to succumb
to sadness for what we lack. This implies avoiding the dynamic of dominion and
the mere accumulation of pleasures.
In the last few weeks I have found myself immersed in the
writings of Christian Theologians that I had not read before. One
reference led me to the work of John
Zizioulas who is the Metropolitan of Pergamon in Greece.(His title is the equivalent of an Archbishop but in the Orthodox Church.)
Zizioulas has very interesting things to say
regarding the way that people are called to live in harmony or balance with
creation. In the first of his Lectures on Preserving God’s Creation he says
this.
“I feel that our culture needs to realize that the
superiority of the human being over the rest of creation does not consist in
the reason it possesses, but in its ability to relate in such a way as to
create events of communion, whereby individual beings are liberated from their
limitations, and are referred to something greater than themselves – to God.”
He explains that men and women create events
of communion not as thinking agents but as persons in relationship to other
creatures in creation. This sense of relationship he defines as a "transcending
relatedness more or less corresponding to love in its deepest sense."
The underlying assumption of his work is that there
is an interdependence between the Human and Nature such that the human being is
not fulfilled until it becomes the summing up of nature – in other words,
humans are fulfilled when their lives reflect harmony with the natural
environment.
How different that focus is from the typical striving of people in the western world where material goods are the sign of success.
Pope
Francis has thrown out a challenge to all people to live with greater
simplicity and concern for Creation. People of faith he has challenged to live in a way that
leads others to the changes needed. Communities of faith are not to wait for the example of leaders or
the laws of the land to change, rather they are to be the leaders, living now in ways that guide
and teach others - whether in family, neighborhood, work environment or larger communities- how to live in harmony with creation. First of course many will need to learn how.
The
Metropolitan Zizioulas names relating
to all other creatures with the deepest sense of love as being "priests of creation."
Love perseveres
regardless of immediate outcome. Love
puts the other first rather than the self. This way of living would indeed change a culture and positively impact the world. Wouldn't it be lovely if Christians did something so profound?
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