This
planet earth is our home away from our home. This home of ours is to be kept
clean and liveable not only for ourselves but for the generations to come. The
twelfth century St. Francis of Assisi acclaimed the planet and its entities as
brother and sister. “Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures
especially Brother Sun, who is beautiful and radiant splendour, Sister Moon and
the stars, who are formed clear and precious and beautiful, Brother Wind,
through air, cloudy and serene and every kind of weather, we get our sustenance
for our living, Sister Water, which is useful and humble and precious and
chaste, Brother Fire, from whom we get light and who is playful and robust and
strong.”
Has
it ever crossed your mind this wonderful way of expressing our love for the nature?
If we did not, I think we can think about it now and treat our natural brothers
and sisters as we treat our own biological siblings. Pope Francis in his
encyclical (letter) “Laudato Si” (Praised to be to you)
categorically warns the world addressing our nature and its creatures including
human beings as sister. “This sister of ours cries out to us because we have
inflicted harm 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.” Pope Francis.
Can
we hear the groan of our sister nature which has been desecrated to the extent
that we will be unable to live in our home nature because of the drastic
climate change in the last few decades. It is significant to treat our nature
as our own home. It is not fair to think the public land does not belong to me,
hence, I can do whatever I like on that land. It is simple logic, as Pope says,
if we consider nature and its creatures as our own family members, I am sure we
will be caring for it by keeping it spruce and healthy. This way we can be
happy to get the utmost from the ecosystem. We need to upkeep our ecosystem
because we are mutually dependable. The life cycle needs every creature and
each one us. Therefore, we have to keep our natural diversity alive by caring
for it. Our nature home needs to keep clean just like our own home. We cannot
live in the filth for a long time. By doing this we contribute significantly towards
a healthy ecosystem. We have been trying our best in different ways to keep our
nature alive by various means but as Pope says, we have to do some serious work
and a serious debate as to how we can control global climate change.
Fr. Jerry Melwin Dias SJ
Diocese of Georgetown
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