Based on the Holy Father’s encyclical letter
Laudato si’, mi’ Signore,
may yours be all praise, my Lord,
always, from every daughter and son of earth
and all its manifold created things,
including ones undiscovered
and yet to be named
by Adam and his descendants,
and likewise be acclaimed,
our infinitely tender Father,
by this our bountiful Mother Earth,
our common home.
Her bounty has woefully been wasted,
her waterways corrupted beyond reclaiming,
and her beauty buried in refuse,
while melting ice fields inundate
her unwary despoilers.
As lobbyist the Pontiff pleads her cause
in spirit of the Little Brother,
who glorified the one
who fashioned rainbows from schools of fish,
projecting their splendor for eyes
detecting their Maker’s smile.
Constructed by galaxies in cosmic labor,
with billions of years consigned
for applying the planet’s tectonic trowels
to hollow out the seas
and pile the mountain ranges
for unbordered paradise,
which was wrapped in rain-producing clouds
as gift for mortals lately fashioned
to unleash the mystery
of their orb of calculated balance,
they contemplate
the Maker’s print of hand and mind
and celebrate
with canticle of gladness and praise,
inhabitants enticed to live
the harmony of holiness
of the saint who wore the image of the Crucified
and made a brotherly alliance
of all the abundant resources of the world.
Through selfish throw-away culture
earth’s seemingly unlimited resources
were tossed aside
with only one bite of absent-minded nibbling,
in gesture of overabundance,
and paradise earth
became a sphere of epidemic sickness,
with billions of inhabitants
at peril and filled with suffering
in a place
designed for beauty and happiness.
This suffering, human suffering,
needs to be transformed
to sweat and strain of muscles,
the suffering of constructive effort
engaged in restoration
and the healing of contaminated gifts,
with earnest striving for a healed and vibrant planet
as the new intense esthetics
for people drawing close to God,
with Francis of Assisi
as patron and inspiring model,
while all on earth surrender
to ecological conversion,
with protection of the Creator’s handiwork
as the archetypical virtue
whereby humans live the covenant
of redeeming their worshipping space.
June 2015
Bonaventure Stefun, OFM Cap.
You can download the entire Encyclical of Pope Francis here.
See the reflections from the Lent-Easter series here.
Advent-Christmas reflections are also online.