As Christians, we are also called “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbors on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human met in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet. (Laudato Si’, 9)
Unless you haven’t been paying attention, you know that there is a gathering in Paris right now – a most important Climate Summit. I preparation for this Summit, the Dominican Sisters Conference launched a year of study and prayer which we entitled, Paris 2015 and Counting . . . We also created a website to share our study with others.
Certainly the countdown for the Summit is past, for COP21 has begun, and four of our Dominican Sisters are there representing civil society. They are Sisters Margaret Mayce, OP (Amityville Dominican who is our NGO representative at the U.N.), Patricia Daly, OP (Caldwell Dominican), Patricia Siemen, OP (Adrian Dominican), and Elise Garcia, OP (Adrian Dominican who is going as a journalist for the Global Sisters Report – a project of National Catholic Reporter).
The wait for the Summit may be over, but not the wait for Climate Justice. Please join the Dominican Sisters in prayer for our world leaders – that they may do the right thing for Earth and for all the people and creatures that share this beautiful home with us.
Over the next couple of weeks I will be sharing quotes from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’.
As in previous years, the posts during the month of November we will concentrate on Gratitude, though truly it is not a seasonal topic.
As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it. What happens here is a spiraling ascent, a process of growth in ever expanding circles around a steady center.
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
– Rachel Carson
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.
In moments of surprise we catch at least a glimpse of the joy to which gratefulness opens the door.
OPreach 