So Close And Yet…

SO CLOSE AND YET…

I guess, the more we read it, we can all be encouraged by Laudato Si. We could even go a step further and be proud. For a change, the Vatican is actually acting like a positive role model.

I came across this briefing by Carol Glatz in the Catholic News Service:

The Vatican’s Christmas tree will be adorned with energy-saving lights, the governing office of Vatican City said…The “next generation” lights are meant to have a reduced impact on the environment and use less energy, the office said.

The tree, 85-feet tall, will still be one chopped down and transported “from the high plateaus of the Veneto region in northeast Italy” and, to make it worse, communities in the province of Vicenza will topple another 20 smaller trees to donate, and so not all is perfect. However, around “40 trees will be replanted in an area in the northeast that had been seriously damaged by severe hurricane-like winds and torrential rains in late 2018,” and so all is also not lost.

And there is this:

The large Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square will be made entirely out of wood and replicate the traditional northern Trentino-style buildings with their wood shingle roofs. At least 20 larger-than-life-size painted wooden figures representing the Holy Family, the Magi, shepherds and animals will animate the scene, which will also include broken tree trunks salvaged from the 2018 storms. 

‘Tis definitely the season for glimmers of hope.

AND YET… SO FAR

EarthBeat, a newsletter devoted to “stories of climate crisis, faith and action,” is producing a December series featuring quotations from, and reflections about, Laudato Si. Remember my saying I was proud of that document? Well, what it doesn’t say, the connections it doesn’t make, can also break my heart. Consider this:

Francis quotes his namesake saint to remind us our common home, Mother Earth, is like a sister with whom we share our life. “This 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. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”

I salute such a beautifully expressed lament about how we treat the earth, but then ask, does the Pope and other powers that be, and all of us who read it, not see how much it also applies to our real life sisters everywhere? The connections are so obvious: the “harm we have inflicted on her,” the plunder and suppression of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

And that enlightened last sentence: “We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will” is excellently applied to the devastation we have all done to the earth. Having embraced that insight, however, could the true Catholic Church “lords and masters” turn it around, apply it to their sisters worldwide, and then point to themselves to effect the urgent changes needed?

If so, we could get rid of the “and yet, so far” part of the popular phrase and joyfully celebrate that we need only the “so close” part at last.