5 October 2019
Saturday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Such a saint as Francis of Assisi can’t be passed over in one day, and as we remember his feast yesterday, we recall his great poem which marks the opening words of the Encyclical on the Environment, Laudato Si’. In this Encyclical Pope Francis reminds us of the dignity of creation as a work of God and that we need to respect this dignity. For some, they see this encyclical as the first statement of the church on the proper use of the environment. Although Ignatius never uses the words which pepper our lexicon dealing with the environment, he is clear in his First Principle and Foundation concerning the proper use of creation. For Ignatius, creation is given to us as means of helping us move towards God’s will. If God creates the environment for a purpose and we subvert that purpose, it is not surprising that we confuse what moves us towards God and what takes us from God. In brief, if we can’t figure out that you don’t put charcoal lighter on a houseplant, we may have trouble aligning ourselves with God. Just as nature has rules so too does human nature. Since our physical bodies support our spiritual nature, they should be given greater respect. A “personal ecology” which touches upon our bodies and what we do with these bodies should be consistent with our view on ecology. God made everything and thus perceiving the world of forests as a locus of care and concern means that we should view our human bodies and what we put into them and how we use them with even greater concern.