Our recent Chapter calls us to recognize that all is interconnected through and in

We are challenged to seek communal and personal environmental sustainability. We are called to:  Educate ourselves and continue to develop and deepen our ecological spirituality.  Collaborate with diverse organizations around environment and environmental education.  Transform the Motherhouse properties and designated intentional communities into models of ecological sustainability. We are part of, not apart from, our Earth.

This demands a spirituality which is: CONTEMPLATIVE ASCETIC PROPHETIC To be able to envision what is being born and what is dying in the womb/tomb of transformation, we must look deeply into soul-level territory.

TOWARD A 21 st - CENTURY SPIRITUALITY AwakeningToEcospirituality We are called to educate ourselves and continue to develop and deepen our ecological spirituality

The Word Ecology is from the Greek OIKOS, which means HOME. Earth is our Home.

Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, makes a very clear statement about our interconnectedness with God’s Earth: “ We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen.2:7) ; our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.” (2)

The Universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence there is mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.(233)

(We must be aware) that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us... that Christ... is risen and intimately present to each being, surrounding it with his affection and penetrating it with his light. (221)

Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon. a sermon. Meister Eckhart Meister Eckhart

“The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things. Mechthild

Earth is our Home. We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen.2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements.. There is mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. (We must be aware) that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.

We are called to collaborate with diverse organizations around environment and environmental education.

READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES At all times the Church caries the responsibility of READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel -- if it is to carry out its task. Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust. a sacred trust. God’s Earth, with its finite resources, is a common concern of all peoples.

It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet. (Patriarch Bartholomew quoted in Laudato Si’) (9)

Theologian S. Elizabeth Johnson calls us to an ecological vocation: a call from God to care for God’s Earth – our home.

We are called to transform the Motherhouse properties and designated intentional communities into models of ecological sustainability. EarthConnection Co-Directors: Winnie Brubach and Caroljean Willie

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how could those of us vowed to serve God inReligious Life Given the troubled and complex world in which we live, how could those of us vowed to serve God in Religious Life and the rest of our Charity family Be LEADERS for Conversion to sustainable living?

VOWED POVERTY AS LIBERATINGFRUGALITY CHARACTERISTICS Universe perspective Everything is sacred Biocentric Shows balance, Shows balance, interdependence & interdependence & adaptation adaptation Free – the freedom of the children of God

Humility,Simplicity and Charity: our HUMAN PLACE IN NATURE And we remember that God is ever present!

Let’s take some time at our tables to share the many ways we are already living in an ecologically sustainable manner and perhaps the ways we know we could do better. What other ways might be do this, individually and as a family of Charity?

I breathe in the Universe and say “yes” to the now. Elizabeth & David Dodson Gray I breathe in God’s Universe and I say ‘YES’ to loving God in All.