At a Mass May 24 marking the end of a week celebrating Pope Francis’s environment-focused encyclical Laudato Sí, Cardinal Wilton Gregory blessed small boxes of seeds in compostable pots that will be a shared with Archdiocese of Washington parishes as part of the gradual rollout of a comprehensive action plan to care for creation.
During the noon Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew, Cardinal Gregory said in his homily that the archdiocesan plan to work toward the Earth-protecting vision of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Sí will be released this summer. He thanked “our friends and colleagues in the academic community,” who are working on developing the plan. He also acknowledged the collaboration of academics and others in the faith community who are working with the Catholic Church on protecting the Earth.
“Many of you are here with us today, your love and concern for this planet take many different expressions.” He noted that one participant in the cathedral, Rabbi Noam E. Marans, director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations for the American Jewish Committee, has been active with the Vatican on environmental awareness.
Along with other collaborators, Cardinal Gregory noted, “we share with them a reverence for creation and their presence today either here or viewing it virtually is a source of joy.”
The cardinal explained that the title of Laudato Sí was drawn from a canticle composed by St. Francis of Assisi in 1224. Another phrase from the canticle gave title to the 1972 film, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, in which director Franco Zeffirelli, “brought Hollywood star power to the life of St. Francis of Assisi.”
St. Francis has long been identified for his close relationship with creation, said the cardinal. “He has become the 13th century ecologist, without his even knowing it, or, I suspect, planning to be one.”
St. Francis praised God for everything in creation and saw divine splendor in all of nature, Cardinal Gregory said. “St. Francis saw God’s fingerprint throughout creation. I suppose Francis would be shocked to see God’s splendid generosity in fashioning the world in which we live has now come too often to be desecrated and exploited.”
He went on to suggest St. Francis might wonder “how could our beloved sister, Mother Earth, come to be so threatened by science and technology and greed, so that her treasures are manipulated and hoarded by the rich and powerful when they are intended to sustain all of us? How could our sister, water become so polluted and defiled that she increasingly cannot be found -- fresh, pure and available to quench the thirst of all the creatures who depend upon her for life?”
In remembering St. Francis’s affinity for creation, Cardinal Gregory said, “we turn to the little poor man from Assisi as we ask him to rekindle within each and every one of us a share of his spirit of wonder and gratitude for God’s creation.”
At the end of the Mass, Cardinal Gregory blessed boxes containing seeds that will be distributed to all parishes to plant on church property. In praying over them, he said, “you provide seed to the sower and bread for food, may the care we show these seeds remind us of your tender love for your people.”
Bob Simon, a member of the archdiocesan Care for Creation Committee, told the Catholic Standard that the action plan “will signal a higher level of commitment for taking action on things like increasing the energy efficiency of parish facilities, controlling pollution from stormwater runoff from parking lots, planting more trees on Catholic properties, and increasing our concern for recycling in parish facilities and at our events.”
Simon said the reason for taking such steps at parishes and asking people to do the same in their lives “is not only because they are good things to do in themselves, or because they will in many cases save us money, but also because they are part of an overall commitment by the archdiocese to do its part to act on the threats to our environment and to respond to Pope Francis's vision in Laudato Sí."
