BEC MONTHLY REFLECTION SEPTEMBER 2024
BEC MONTHLY REFLECTION SEPTEMBER 2024
SALT OF THE EARTH AND LIGHT OF THE WORLD: COMMUNION, PARTICIPATION AND MISSION (MATTHEW 5: 13-16)
Monthly Focus: Listening to the Cry of the Earth
Our suffering Mother Earth is crying out to mankind to stop their agony. It is time for us to listen attentively, rooted in faith and love to this weeping planet bringing hope to our world. Eight years ago, Pope Francis gave us a gentle and pastoral invitation to care for creation through the encyclical pastoral letter on the care for our common home – Laudato Si’. In 2023, he wrote Laudate Deum, an apostolic exhortation calling for an immediate action climate crisis.
“There are no lasting changes without cultural changes
… and there are no cultural changes without personal changes” (LD, 70)
OPENING PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we come together as a BEC to uphold our responsibility in caring for our common home as stewards of your creation. We recognise our failings in protecting Mother Earth and we open our hearts to you for your guidance to act responsibly towards our planet in harmony with creation. Amen.
OPENING HYMN
Be praised, Most High, Almighty Lord
Yours the blessings and glory be.
Only honour belongs to you for all eternity.
Be praised, Lord of the creature world,
And first Sir Brother and Sun.
Who through the day and light you give,
Reflects you, O Holy One.
Be praised through Sister Moon and Stars,
Bright and precious they shine above.
Through Brother Wind and all Weathers too
Be praised, O Lord of Love.
Through Sister Water, Lord be praised
For fair and chaste is She,
And Brother Fire that Lights the Night,
So strong and bright is He.
Be praised through Sister Mother Earth,
For She sustains and guides our way.
And yields so many fruits and grass
And flowers to brighten our day.
Be praised through all who pardon give,
For love of you bearing their pain.
Blessed men suffering peacefully,
They shall not cry in vain.
Dialogue: Being a Community of God’s Stewards
Dialogue: Being a Community of God’s Stewards
Pope Francis has written a lengthy encyclical focused solely on the environment: Laudato Si’ (LS), On Care for Our Common Home. He argues that the environment is in crisis; he issues an urgent call to action. He pointedly asks: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” Recalling the beautiful canticle of Francis of Assisi, the pope notes that the earth, our sister, “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her”. “I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home”. Pope Francis calls for “a global ecological conversion,” asserting that “authentic human development has a moral character” and that we need “an integral ecology”.
Summary of the six numbered chapters of Laudato Si’:
- What is Happening to Our Common Home? – the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” closely linked to a throwaway culture.
- Gospel of Creation – we need a sense of deep communion with the rest of nature, adopting the gaze of Jesus where we see the earth is essentially a shared inheritance and everything is related.
- Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis – failing to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature.
- Integral Ecology – ecology must influence all of daily life with the principle of the common good seeing that what is at stake is our own dignity.
- Lines of Approach and Action – Outline dialogue that escape the spiral of self-destruction as interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan. Religions must continue in dialogue with science.
- Ecological Education and Spirituality – a cultural, spiritual and educational challenge before us, demanding a long path of renewal, addressing a consumerist lifestyle for ecological conversion.
Share your thoughts with your BEC members
- How can you respond to the invitation to live a simpler lifestyle?
- What are your personal, concrete initiative to foster ecological responsibility?
- How can one’s faith contribute to care for the earth, our common home?
Resource: A Joyful Journey with Pope Francis 2024
DISCERNMENT Roman 8:22-23
We are well aware that the whole 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.
PERSONAL REFLECTION:
READ the text above aloud and LISTEN with openness.
READ it silently by yourself until a word or phrase touches or strikes you.
ASK: What is the Holy Spirit saying to me in my heart through the word or phrase?
SHARE:
SHARE in small groups (3-4 persons) the word or phrase that touched you and what do you think the Lord is saying to you personally.
DEEDS:
Ecological Conversion – Connecting with creation through prayer brings peace and serenity.
Turning Away from Plastic -Refraining from plastics designed used only once before discarding.
Sustainable Food -Throwing food away is ‘food stolen from the table of the poor’. Plan and buy food.
Water Conservation -Living the motto of ‘Every Drop Counts’ as part of our daily lives.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Grant us the wisdom to care for this earth, the strength to be protectors of our common home, and the responsibility to act for future generations. Help us to restore ourselves and our planet through an ecological spirituality grounded in your power and love. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN: Make Me A Channel of Your Peace
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there is doubt true faith in You.
Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness only light
And where there’s sadness ever joy.
Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we are born to eternal life.