Legitimate righteous anger…
Can provide energy and courage to speak out
And work for change, but this kind of anger seeks conversion
And reconciliation, not vengeance or destruction.
It does not become bitter.
On this Second Sunday of the Season of Creation, the scriptures remind us that the seriousness of the ecological crisis demands an urgent and passionate prophetic act, it must remain non-judgmental and forgiving. God’s Word is a reflection on how much we have been forgiven and still need forgiveness so that we may be patient and forgiving of others.
Penitential Prayer
Conscious of God’s mercy, patience, kindness and compassion in our lives, let us enter into the quiet of our spirits … asking for forgiveness … and for a forgiving spirit with each other.
Creator God, You have entrusted the human family with the richly diverse gifts of creation, asking us to receive them with gratitude, share them generously, and care for them wisely and well, too often we abuse Your gifts and Your trust.
Creator Spirit of God, have mercy.
Christ Holy Spirit of God, You are at work in us and among us making us more conscious of the sacredness of all creation, raising up global movements in these times to care for Earth and for each other.
Wisdom of God, have mercy.
May God, the Creator of all time and space and the vast Web of Life in which we live, have mercy on us, free us from our sins, and guide us into the fullness of divine Life. Amen.
Jesus, You came to show us God’s loving forgiveness and You have taught us to forgive each other as we long to be forgiven.
Word of God, have mercy.
The Lord is Kind and Merciful
Ricky Manalo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es8jLT_rmek
How have we experienced God’s patience and forgiveness for the ways we receive, live in, and treat God’s gifts of Earth, of creation? As individuals?
As a global community?
The Book of Sirach warns that clinging to anger and vengeance will bring God’s anger and vengeance upon us. We must forgive others’ injustice if we hope to have God forgive our own.
In this passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans we are encouraged not to judge one another. Each one lives or dies for Christ and “each of us shall give an account to God.” Romans 14:12
Matthew’s Gospel answers two questions:
How often must we forgive someone who seeks forgiveness?
What will happen if we don’t forgive each other?
Jesus could not be clearer! We must forgive not 7 times but 77 times – a metaphor in his time and culture for a number without limit. Every time they ask forgiveness sincerely, we must give it from our hearts. If we do not forgive each other when we have been forgiven so much by God, we will lose God’s forgiveness.
To recognize how precious God’s forgiveness for the misuse of the gifts of creation is, we need to be conscious of how precious and sacred those gifts are.
How has God patiently increased our awareness of the preciousness of the gifts of creation?
What do we most appreciate, enjoy and rely on in nature? How can we come to recognize it more as a gift from God?
How can we contemplate God present in those gifts? How can we grow in discerning God’s Self-gift in and through them?
As we have grown in consciousness of God’s gifts of creation and of our destructive use and abuse of them, we have experienced God’s patience, mercy, and call to conversion in our lives – what Pope Francis has called an integral ecological conversion.
How have we been forgiven in our individual journeys thus far? In our community life? For what are we in still need of forgiveness now?
How can we expand our consciousness of the ways we continue to live unconscious of or unconcerned about waste, pollution, a “throw away culture,” overuse of resources, inequality and poverty?
Acknowledging our sins, failures, slowness to change and asking forgiveness, we need to contemplate and give profound thanks to God for this patience, gentleness in forgiving us, teaching us, drawing us to work for the New Creation.
How can we express and live out our gratitude for God’s patient forgiveness to us personally? As a community?
How can we work at deepening and nurturing that gratitude of spirit? What type of liturgies, prayers, actions together can nurture this spiritual growth?
How can that gratitude call forth in us patience and forgiveness for those “behind us” in this journey? For those resisting or denying the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth?
Prayer
Our loving God, be attentive to our prayers and receive with favor these gifts of our energies and service. May what each of us has offered to the glory of your name advance the healing and salvation of us all and of the Earth our home. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
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