- about us
- what we do
- get involved
- support us
SummertimeSeptember 05, 2023
Back to weekly reflections
Summertime
“Summertime and the livin’ is easy.”
I have been thinking about this song a lot lately. The weather and side effects of global warming have certainly made our living this summer challenging at best. I was in Florida in early summertime. The effects of Ian were still hauntingly visible as the heat rose to three digits on many days and the Gulf of Mexico heated to unnaturally high temperatures. I don’t have to enumerate all the woes our suffering planet is experiencing. You see them daily on the news with storms and fire and floods and the heat , oh, my yes, the heat. Some of these you are experiencing personally.
So, what does this say to us?
Laudato si’ written by Pope Francis gives us an invitation to care for our home, Mother Earth. The Pope in a very thoughtful encyclical suggests ways we can personally move toward care of earth. The Ursuline sisters spent a Saturday morning together in March, first talking about what we are doing and then discussing how to extend these efforts. Here are some of the major practices that our sisters are already engaged in: gardening to beautify our area and also to provide some vegetables for our table. Sisters are also composting and educating toward reducing our carbon footprint, recognizing the need we have to support the reduction of our use of fossil fuel.
The suggestion that the song brings to mind is that our fragile planet is our only home. Living on it requires care and support. Easy living isn’t impervious to the damage that our living can cause unless we are vigilant. What this suggests is that we take time to view the Pope’s video: ‘THE LETTER’
And, spend some summertime with the book, Laudato si’.
Let us end today with a prayer for our care of earth:
Good and gracious God, 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. O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes. May we always remember that all of creation is your gift to us and that as a part of that creation, it is our call to care and protect the most vulnerable. Amen.