In his prayer for September—a month in which many Christians celebrate the Season of Creation, beginning on 1 September and concluding on the feast of St Francis of Assisi on 4 October—Pope Francis returns to one of his central preoccupations: the threat to our environment and to the people affected by that threat.
Pope Francis’ prayer echoes the themes of his reflections on the environment in Laudato si’ and Laudate Deum. He emphasises the cry of an earth threatened and wounded by global warming, insisting that this is not a natural phenomenon but the result of human exploitation of the environment in the pursuit of profit. As he focuses on human responsibility for the threat to the world and to human beings— especially to the poor who bear the burden of global warming—he stresses the corresponding human responsibility to care for the world. Though the technological developments that have helped create the crisis can also be part of its healing, a change of heart and of human behaviour will also be needed.
When we take to heart a wounded world and wounded people, we will naturally want to heal the wounds.
Calling for just such a change of direction, Pope Francis says we should pay attention to the hurt suffered by our environment and allow it to touch our hearts. It must become personal. If we see it as something that affects only the natural world and not us, we will ignore it. Pope Francis sees the environment as us, and us as our environment. If the earth cries out, we will feel the pain. The intensity and frequency of the floods and fires around the world that are associated with global warming should touch our hearts. We should also share the pain of those whose families have died, those who have been made homeless and those who go hungry because of these events. They are our brothers and sisters, and perhaps prophets of our descendants’ fate.
If these people are our people, this world torn by extreme climate change is also our only world. When we take to heart a wounded world and wounded people, we will naturally want to heal the wounds. As well as having a general desire to see the world healed, we should demonstrate a personal care for the world that is wounded, so that our care is reflected in the way we live, beginning at home and colouring all our behaviour. This kind of personal care will shape what we eat and drink, how we dispose of the wrappings, how and whether we travel, what we read and which television programs we look at, where we holiday, what causes we support and what controversies we become involved in.
When things become personal to us, we can easily become earnest and preoccupied. The Season of Creation provides an antidote to that. Its focus on St Francis of Assisi reminds us of what a blessing it is to take delight in the environment of which we are part. It takes us out of ourselves, helping us to notice the movement of the seasons, the beauty of water, trees and hills; to feel the rise and fall and the texture of the paths beneath our feet, the freshness of rain after a heatwave, the fit of well-designed houses in a treelined street.
When we take it personally—when we really take it to heart—the Season of Creation is a time for celebration and gratitude as well as solicitude.
