Season of Creation Sunday 2

 

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

Bread to Share

Marty Haugan

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLzghppCRts

September 9th Feast of St. Peter Claver

Peter  Claver’s  Vision

The Dignity of All Peoples

The life and work of

Saint Peter Claver

led to naming him

Patron

of…

 

African Americans
African Missions
Colombia

  Interracial Justice

Peter Claver and Anne Marie Javouhey

Captured by the Vision of Jesus’ Mission and the Dignity of All Peoples, Peter Claver and Anne Marie Javouhey, were called to ‘Go to all peoples’.  Their Missionary Vocation and power of the Holy Spirit in their lives were manifested in the decisions and bold actions of their lives and their congregations.

Both went beyond their homeland; they served the most abused, rejected, and lowly of all people, the new world slave, and they became known for their service to the least, the lost and the last of society.  Their lives witnessed powerfully to the work to liberate, give dignity to and value all human life.

When Anne Marie Javouhey formed her young congregation in 1807,  St. Peter Claver, missionary to enslaved peoples of the Americas, was named one of the Patron saints of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny.

During this Year of Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Anne Marie Javouhey, the Cluny Sisters around the world, call upon their Patron, Peter Claver, to intercede for the canonization of our founder and the mission of the 2,500 Cluny Sisters to serve all peoples everywhere, especially to the lost, the least and the last in our world today.

Remembering the Story of Peter Claver

A native of Spain, young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena, a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615.

By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned it continued to flourish.

When Peter Claver arrived in Cartagena, he declared himself “the slave of the Negroes forever.”

As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons, and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God’s love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.

After four years of sickness, which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely neglected, Claver died on September 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp.

Peter Claver was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.

Story of Peter Claver

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqW1oiPRhU

 

Join us in Prayer for the Canonization of

Blessed Anne Marie Javouhey

 

Lord our God,

You enabled Blessed Anne Marie to

Consecrate herself to the carrying our

Of Your Holy Will in all things

And to be ever attentive to Your Calls

As manifested through the poorest

Of her brothers and sisters.

 

Grant that we,

In the Church of our day,

May zealously continue the work

You confided to her.

 

Through her intercession hear

The prayers we address to You…

 

(add your personal intentions)

 

In Your Goodness,

Grant us the favor of her canonization

For Your Glory and to

Promote Your Reign of

Love, justice and peace.

Amen.

 

Story of Blessed Anne Marie Javouhey

 

http://sj-cluny.org/History-of-Anne-Marie-Javouhey?lang=fr

Season of Creation Sunday I

All is interdependent, all is interconnected.

We cannot say we love God if we do not love our neighbor.

We cannot say we love our neighbor  if we do not care for the  air,

the  water,  the  land, the  ecological systems, the  intricate Web of Life

upon which our neighbors and we depend for life itself.

 

 

On this First Sunday of the Season of Creation, the scriptures call us to accept our prophetic responsibility in love to invite each other to conversion and care for creation in these times of ecological crisis and collapse.

 

 

Opening Prayer

 

Our Loving God, in You justice and mercy meet. With unparalleled love and forgiveness, You have drawn  us into the  circle of your life. You send us to invite our sisters and brothers to turn from their  sins into Your ways, ways of love and care for You, for each other, and for all creation. Open our eyes  to the  wonders Your creation sets before us that we may serve you free  from fear and address You with grateful love. We ask this in the  name of Jesus the  Lord. Amen.

 

One of Pope Francis’s central beliefs at the heart of Laudato Si’ is that everything and everyone is connected, interdependent. We are  responsible for each other. God speaks to us and calls us to conversion in many  ways. In the  context of the Season of Creation, we need to listen to that Word of God in “the  cry of the  Earth  and the  cry of the  poor.”  

                                                                                                                           - Laudato Si’ #49

 

The Prophet Ezekiel describes God’s warning to himself  and to us: we are responsible for each other. If we hear and fail to relay  God’s Word, God’s call to conversion to those for whom it is intended, we will be held responsible and complicit in their  sin and in the  suffering and punishment it brings.

 

St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans puts this prophetic education and invitation to care for creation in their  deepest context: they are expressions of the  great commandments that sum everything up:

Love God. Love your neighbor.

 

How can we, how do we express this prophetic love …

            In our families?

            In our parishes and dioceses?

            In our religious communities?

            In our schools and universities?

            In our hospitals and health care centers?

            In our businesses and farms?

 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus lays out a way to convey the  urgent prophetic warnings in this time of ecological crisis, an approach that shows respect for those who need to hear these truths and invites  conversion gently but persistently.  At the  same time, the approach is realistic: there will be those who will not listen.

 

Intercessory Prayer

That we may grow in consciousness of the great gift of creation and all of its elements,  We Pray…

 

To deepen our gratitude for nature’s rich Web of Life within which we live and may grow in openness to wiser and more just ways of caring for Each and sharing it,   We Pray…

 

To take up our prophetic responsibility in this time of climate crisis and collapse to speak God’s Truth to each other and to call each other into conversion and to ways of living within creation wisely, sustainably, justly, and reverently, 

We Pray…

 

Prayer

Conscious of God’s loving presence and great gifts to us in creation,

let us enter into the  quiet of our spirits, praying for prophetic courage, wisdom, and deeper love for God, for all people, and for creation which gives us life and sustains us. In Jesus’ Name.  AMEN.

If today you hear God’s Voice,

Harden not your hearts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZZoVBbmbRc

Season of Creation THEME

 Jubilee Time for Earth

 

“We are faced  not by two separate crises,

one environmental and the  other social,

but rather  with one complex crisis

which is both environmental and social.

Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach  

to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the  excluded,

and at the  same time  protecting nature.”

Laudato  Si’   #139

 

We begin the Season of Creation, September 1 - October 4, in the midst of a climate emergency that some have called a climate collapse. The Season of Creation is a time to acknowledge the tipping points being reached, that are threatening the lives of the most vulnerable and putting the lives of future generations in jeopardy.  As people of faith we are called to stand up against climate injustice in prophetic ways.

 

The Theme of the 2020 Season of Creation is ‘Jubilee for the Earth’. Climate change is the result of the intersection of greed, inequality and destruction of God’s Earth.  Jubilee is a time to renounce overconsumption and economic systems based on constant economic growth at the cost of Earth and those who are poor.  In faith traditions, Jubilee is a time when those who have consumed the most must make restitution to those who have suffered the most.  It is a time of rest for the land from constant exploitation, to restore ecosystems and people. Let us learn, pray and act throughout this month long Jubilee!

 

Blessing  Prayer

 

We believe that all creatures come  forth from the  all-powerful hand  of the Creator, evolving  through time and space, filled with God’s presence and tender love.

May God awaken our praise and thankfulness for every        

creature and bless  us with the  grace of feeling  profoundly  

joined to everything that is. Amen.

Through Christ all things were made.  Formed in the womb of Mary our Mother, Christ Jesus became part of Earth, gazing upon this world with human eyes.

May Christ bless  us with eyes  to see  him alive in every creature in his risen glory. Amen.

The Holy Spirit guides this world toward the Creator’s love and accompanies creation as it groans in travail.

May this Holy Spirit dwell in our hearts and inspire us to do what is good, to care wisely and with love for Earth, our Common Home.   Amen.

And may our Triune God, wondrous community of infinite love, bless us all with justice, peace, love and beauty, Creator, Word and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Hymn:  For The Beauty of The Earth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTcJ_SQruhE

 

 

For more information go to:

Global Catholic Climate Movement

 

https://catholicclimatemovement.global/christians-come-together-to-celebrate-season-of-creation/