Our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life … a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted upon her

The violence of sin in our hearts, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.

What is happening to our common home

1.Global Warming 2.Issues of drinking water 3.Extinction of mammals or birds 4.Oceans becoming underwater cemeteries. 5.Cities have become unhealthy to live in. 6.A third of all food produced is discarded. Problems

The earth is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.

Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.

The Gospel of Creation

The entire material universe speaks of God’s love. Soil, water, mountains, everything is as it were a “caress” of God.

Creation story Gen 1:28 God said unto them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have “dominion” over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

Wrong understanding of “dominion”: – Not power over. – But power to “protect” & “Care for” as a king his subjects

The Human roots of the Ecological Crisis

It is right to rejoice in the great advances of science and technology. Yet the fact remains that contemporary man has “not been trained” to use power well.

What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us?

Lines of approach and action

Integral Ecology.

Since everything is closely interrelated, we need an integral ecology….It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions.

Ecological education and spirituality

1. Ecological education At all levels … Including families

– We show how to love and respect life. – Proper use of things, – cleanliness and – care for all creatures.

2. Need to cultivate sound virtues – Reduce – Reuse – Recycle Eco-Motto

3. Spirituality - Ecological conversion:

The external deserts in the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast.

Compulsive consumerism: The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.

“Right Attitudes” … some of which I quote here 1.GRATITUDE - a recognition that the world is God’s loving gift 2.A connectedness with the rest of creatures in a splendid universal COMMUNION. 3.A return to SIMPLICITY … Less is more.

Let us sing as we go. May our struggle and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures.

Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth. WE make this prayer through Christ our Lord Amen

Laudato Si’

Praise be to … God!