While I love the color GREEN, I am far from being a person who is “green” in how I care for the environment and God’s Creation. Unfortunately, being concerned about the environment and the tragic condition of the environment due to our wasteful living, is mired in politics. It all boils down to money and greed in which businesses and corporations will do anything and everything to get us to consume and buy, which, in turn, causes us to discard current possessions to acquire new ones; the former possessions frequently become waste or hand me downs to the poor. At least in the latter case, our throw away possessions are helping others.
The story of Creation is told once again in poetic beauty in the first reading of our Mass. God created everything out of nothing for the sheer desire to be creative and share creation with us, humankind. God gave us “dominion” over His creation, a word that has been used to manipulate and abuse the created world for our selfish consumption. We have turned “dominion” into “domination,” not caring how we pollute the air and water, making certain we keep buying and buying.
It is a sin against humanity to treat God’s creation, His handiwork, for selfish and destructive purposes. As I look at my own life, the vast amount of garbage I create, the food I buy and fail to eat, throwing it away when it’s past its due date or spoils. Sometimes, I even forget about food that gets lost in my refrigerator!!! Cooking for one is very difficult but no excuse to waste food, when hundreds of millions of people are starving.
To become stewards of God’s Creation we must have a change of lifestyle and a greater awareness of how our disregard for the environment is hurting the poor in ways we remain blind to. And it is making the air we breath unsafe, and the atmosphere enveloping the earth very fragile.
How can I/you/we become more aware of the beauty of creation and the ways we harm creation? How can this parish become a part of the solution, in the way we live out our faith Community? Maybe the best Lent we can have is to pray about how we can become more “green” and make a few concrete actions to show that we are serious.
Peace,
Fr. Frank