SUMMER 2023: THE SUMMER FROM HELL

 

 

 

We cannot believe the number of fires that we have experienced in Canada this past summer. The fire experts tell us that this is so unusual to have major fires, all summer, burning throughout the entire North. We have never experienced so many smoky hours in one season. Not only in Canada but throughout the world there have been major droughts, record breaking temperatures and fires. This is truly the summer from hell!

Last Wednesday, Pope Francis issued a follow up to his ground-breaking encyclical (major Church teaching), ‘Laudato si’. To issue a follow up is very unusual. This means the issue of caring for the earth and reducing carbon emissions is very pressing.

This exhortation,’ Laudate Deum’, laments the foot dragging of our governments, corporations, businesses, countries and individual citizens to move away from carbon consumption. At the same time, it gives encouragement to people of good will to work towards saving our planet.

Here is where everyone in the Church is needed and can make a life-giving contribution. In the past the official teaching of the Church emerged through very dedicated people on the ground but was given official recognition and teaching by the bishops of the Church. Then it was given universal recognition through the office of the Pope. This usually happened in the form of the encyclical (official Church policy). This is how most of the social teachings of the Church developed over the past century and a quarter.

But now we are in a situation where the laity in the Church must develop a spirituality and a way of living the Christian faith that nourishes and preserves the earth. We are all interconnected: every bacteria, tree, gopher and human  being, and no one can survive unless we respect and nourish this inter-connectedness together.

The encyclical of Pope Francis and this follow-up statement must be seen as the starting pistol of the race to save the planet. We are all sent forth to renew our life-style, our consumption habits and working towards greater equality in our time and space. The time is very tight. We are inching close to the 1.5 rise in global temperature and dangerously close to falling over the edge into a much hotter world. The exhortation from last Wednesday is a warming that we could be very close to the tipping edge of climate warming.

All of humanity, and not just Christian believers, must reconnect with the earth, value each part of creation and responsibly use creation in a way that respects the value of every tree, rock and bit of fresh water.

Here is where the laity can make a tremendous contribution to developing a spirituality that values the earth as God values the earth and work toward a life-style that is life-sustaining to our planet. This is not a spirituality that can be developed, alone,  in our church buildings and with our episcopal structures.

This is not a time when our Christians will be told what to do. This is a time to work together into a spirituality that will preserve and help the planet to thrive.

The future our Christian spirituality looks bright. Is it not the Holy Spirit bringing new life out of old, creaky church structures?