Eucharist and laudato Si' by ECEN

Eucharist and Laudato S i Care For Our Common Home

Liturgical Resources to Celebrate a Catholic Season of Creation During September

Charles Rue - Columban Mission 1

Photos: All photos in this book have been taken by the author Charles Rue. Published by: C olumban’s Mission PO Box 752, NIDDRIE Vic 3042 Phone +61 3 9375 9474 Fax +61 3 9379 6040 info@columban.org.au www.columban.org.au Design and Layout: Kellie Williams at Jasper Design www.jasperdesign.com.au “The Missionary Society of Saint Columban is an exclusively missionary Society sent by the Church ‘to the Nations’, to proclaim and witness to the Good News in Jesus Christ. It crosses boundaries of country, language and culture. Striving to have the Kingdom of God permeate the lives and cultures of all peoples, it proclaims the universal message of salvation through witness, ministry and dialogue from the standpoint of solidarity with the poor of Earth.” Charles Rue Eucharist and Laudato Si’: Care for Our Common Home Liturgical Resources to Celebrate a Catholic Season of Creation During September ISBN 978-0-646-97259-6 The author thanks Claude and Iris (Whalan) Rue for their financial support. The author thanks many advisors and proof readers.

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contents Foreword by David Orr osb............................................................................................... 4 Introduction......................................................................................................................... 5 Environmental Teaching................................................................................................................. 5 Sunday Eucharist.............................................................................................................................. 6 September Season of Creation.................................................................................................... 6 Creation as Expression of the Loving Kindness of God.........................................................7 Chapters of the Book Explained.................................................................................................. 8 Chapter One: Scriptural Covenants as a Basis for a Liturgical Season of Creation .... 9 Covenants in the Bible...................................................................................................................10 Expanded Understanding of the Covenants ..........................................................................10 Environmental Themes...................................................................................................................11 Spiritual Reading of the Ecological Crisis.................................................................................12 New Covenant and Eucharist......................................................................................................12 New Lectionary ...............................................................................................................................12 Noah Covenant................................................................................................................................13 Abraham Covenant.........................................................................................................................14 The Moses Covenant ....................................................................................................................14 David Covenant...............................................................................................................................15 Jesus Covenant............................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter Two: Mission, Laudato Si’ and Eucharistic Practice..................................... 19 Exhortation on Mission..................................................................................................................19 Baptism.............................................................................................................................................20 Baptism and Local Issues ............................................................................................................20 Eucharist............................................................................................................................................21 Clergy and Homily..........................................................................................................................21 Poetry and Music............................................................................................................................22 Catholic Environmental Attitudes...............................................................................................22 Introduction to Resources for Celebrating a Catholic Season of Creation During September.........................................................................................................................23 Some Guidelines for Creating a Catholic Season of Creation Resource........................25 Format of the Resources..............................................................................................................25 Liturgical Resources for the Sundays in September................................................... 27 Year A – 22-27 Sunday in Ordinary Time................................................................................ 27 Year B – 22-27 Sunday in Ordinary Time................................................................................39 Year C – 22-27 Sunday in Ordinary Time.................................................................................51 Advent and Lent Online-Resources in the Spirit of Laudato Si’ ................................63 Appendix: A Proposal for a Season of Creation in the Liturgical Year (reprint)......67

FORWARD

David Orr osb In our catholic tradition we have celebrated events of creation in our Liturgy. Harvest festivals gave rise to ember days and rogation days where we both celebrate the gifts of creation and intercede for the difficult times of drought and flood. Charles broadens this relationship of creation and prayer by recalling the various covenants that God has made throughout history. Out of this awareness of our gracious God’s enduring relationship with creation and its people Charles draws us into the contemporary state of creation. “I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all”. Inspired by this call of Pope Francis, Charles has assembled many resources to enable Sunday assemblies of Catholics to become informed of the needed concern for the environment and seek a path into the future for the life of our planet. Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, lays the foundation for such a search. Charles has taken this to heart and now provides us with a resource to further its progress. Working out of his liturgical formation, Charles takes the existing liturgical resources allocated to each Sunday during the month of September to provide a focus on creation. He begins with the existing Lectionary and directs us to take on the eye of creation to deepen our understanding of these texts. While he hopes for a special Creation Lectionary to be developed, Charles works with the current Lectionary texts and engages with the ecumenical world in selecting September as focus time for this work. For each Sunday there are resources for reading the lectionary ecologically, preparing comments and homily, providing intentions for the intercessory prayer, selecting hymns and challenging quotes from Laudato Si. From the suggested resources there is need to prepare and select what will be helpful for our Sunday assembly. The homilist will not find a ready made homily, but will be supported by many ideas to prepare the homily. Eucharist and Laudato Si. Care for our Common Home is a helpful and challenging resource for our Sunday assemblies to take up the urgent invitation of Pope Francis to care for our common home: to imagine ourselves as interdependent members of a community and world in which all our personal decisions affect others and creation. The provided resources enable us to engage with the liturgical resources of our Lectionary to bring to our prayer the needs of creation and to be called to action.

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Introduction T

he aim of this book is simple: to offer suggestions for celebrating Sunday Mass in a way that takes respect and care for Earth seriously. It is written in the belief that the power of communal prayer is fundamental to bringing to life the Pope’s 2015 environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’: Care for our Common Home (LS). This can be done at any Eucharist or communal prayer gathering. To help this happen, this book concentrates on offering examples for celebrating the Sundays in September with environmental sensitivity. Many churches have already nominated that month as a liturgical Season of Creation. Pope Francis writes: “Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane … The Eucharist joins heaven and Earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation” (LS #236). Vatican II declared that liturgy is not only the summit of Christian life but its font. It is in prayer that we most intensely connect with God the creator but also learn how God wants us to relate to the rest of creation of which we are a part.

Environmental Teaching

audato Si’ ushers in a new era of Catholic social teaching even more mind-blowing than the worker’s rights encyclical of Pope Leo XIII in 1891. It dealt with the important issue of justice for workers but this encyclical of Pope Francis deals with the entire Planet. The newness of its vision and the way it stretches the moral imaginations is revolutionary. This revolution is named under the phrase integral ecology and Pope Francis connects it with the radical way of life of St Francis (LS #10-11). We have only to remember the Pope’s words, The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth (LS #21), to gauge the weight of the social teaching he has advanced. He is passionate. No theologian or scientist would dare to use such words. The Pope states that he wants to take Church Social Teaching to new heights as he outlines a number of themes which recur thought his encyclical about environmental impacts on both the suffering planet and suffering people (LS #15-16). The Pope respects the scientists who

have exposed the ecological crisis and he thanks environmental campaigners. He calls on believers to dialogue with them so that all may move forward together (LS #13). Science does not explain everything; rationality is only one human quality. But the Pope calls for science and religion to work together in a dialogue of mutual respect, each offering its own expertise (LS #62). Powerful forces have to be confronted and the Pope Francis warns against dangers inherent in the technocratic paradigm based on rationalist reductionism (LS #106). Big words sometimes hide powerful and arrogant attitudes. The Pope’s encyclical details a pathway of hope as we face the planet’s environmental crisis. He says Earth is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us (LS #1). His reflections lead him to recall the nobility of the human vocation to participate responsibly in God’s creative action (LS #131). He declares that it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience (LS #217). As he wrote in his 2014 Exhortation on Mission (EG #215-216), every

believer has a calling to be part of the mission of the Church to care for the world and future generations. The Pope devotes the whole of Chapter Four in his environmental encyclical to explain the phrase integral ecology which embraces a bundle of connected spheres – human arrogance, ecology, human fulfilment, care for the poor, economics, politics and life style. It is within these social spheres where parishes must live and find the ‘smell of the sheep’ to use a phrase pf Pope Francis from his Exhortation on evangelisation. First of all, Pope Francis challenges Catholics and all people to a new vision of union with God and Earth by recognising God’s presence and action in the totality of creation – peoples, animals, land and sea, air and cosmos - God, Earth and Humanity form three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships (LS #66). This is radical theology.

Second, the Pope cites major worldwide ecological problems – pollution, biodiversity, climate change – in the context of the breakdown of human society (LS #20-60). His encyclical expands our moral imagination to make care for creation, including humanity, central to the living faith of believers in every nation and culture (LS #14). The Pope says that in the past we have made a mistake in interpreting the Bible when we used it to sanction domination over Earth or people, especially its weaker members (LS #67). Compassion takes on new breadth. Through Laudato Si’ Catholics have a new opportunity to both meditate on the Pope’s vision of creation and the invitation to respond in prayer to Earth’s environmental challenge.

Sunday Eucharist

elebrating the Sunday Eucharist is the ordinary way believers, ministers and faithful alike, are nourished in the knowledge and living of their faith. It is key to Catholic life. From Advent time, when we meditate on the spiritual yearnings of people, through to the fulfilment of creation history celebrated in Christ as Cosmic King, the Sunday liturgy is the primary place where Christian communities remember God’s actions, give thanks and are called to ongoing conversion. Reading the Scripture each Sunday with ecological eyes and resolving to care for all God’s creatures, especially in our local place, is key to celebrating liturgy that has the ‘smell of the sheep’ immersed in an environmental crisis. Liturgy nourishes individual and communal ecological conversion (LS #219) and celebrating the Sunday Eucharist with the mind of Pope Francis is a powerful way for individual and Catholic communities to bring Laudato Si’ into Catholic living.

September Season of Creation

he Sundays in September have been designated by some Churches as a liturgical Season of Creation. This book follows their lead. The central part of this resource book gives examples of how the Scripture Readings currently designated for Sundays in September in the Catholic Rite can be read with ecological eyes. This leads to creation sensitive liturgical prayer. The arguments made in this book for celebrating the Eucharist in a way that takes care of the Earth seriously move in logical steps – • Remember the ecological vision given by Pope Francis in his encyclical as a response to the global environment crisis and the ecological vocation given to followers of Jesus; • Taking Scripture as the basis of Care for Earth and all kin it houses as

family in God, focus on the Covenant promises of God exemplifying the outreach of God in loving kindness; • Highlight how an organised Catholic communal response to global and local environmental concern can help re-invigorate Church pastoral practice and mission outreach, and finally; • Offer specific suggestions on ways to celebrate Sunday Eucharist during September using the existing Lectionary that help parishioners grow in their environmental awareness and care. These Sundays form a Catholic Season of Creation in its own right but importantly, also offer an example of liturgical sensitivity to Earth in planning every Eucharist or prayer service.

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Creation as expression of the Loving Kindness of God

reation of the universe, planet Earth and evolution of its creatures, culminating in self-aware human kind, is the first revelation of the outpouring of God’s own self. Creation is an ongoing act of God’s loving-kindness. The words justice, mercy and compassion have connected meanings in the Hebrew Scriptures but often do not translate well into contemporary English. The phrase ‘loving-kindness’ may better convey the richness of their meaning and express the self-giving of God in the totality of creation. The Cosmos is wrapped in the God’s loving embrace. The Pope prays, [God] You embrace with your tenderness all that exists (LS #246). Over millennia believers have created various Catholic Rites by exploring the interaction of Scriptural writings on the creative acts of God and local circumstances. Liturgical history tells many stories. Local

traditions have led to celebrations such as Ember days which are loosely based on the cycles of the sun. These became part of the Roman Rite. Also, various days of fasting were designated, often based on food scarcity before Spring-growth as much as on penitential measures to curb human appetite. Fundamentally, incarnational thinking led to insights about how Earth realities and its cycles can carry spiritual messages. These insights form the basis for theologies about sacraments. Even celebrating Earth awareness in the lives of saints, such as John of the Cross, is in this tradition (LS #234). Pope Francis has reminded us about the creation centred life and life-style of St Francis of Assisi. It is of note that the first Pope to write an encyclical on the environment was also the first pope in history to take that name Francis.

Scriptural Covenants as a basis for a Liturgical Season of Creation

hapter One in this book draws on Scriptural Covenants as a way of exploring the outreach of God in loving kindness as a basis for ecological prayer and a Season of Creation. The five major recognised God given Covenants are those made through Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and finally Jesus the Christ. Key to all these Covenants is that God took the initiative in offering blessings. The role of humanity is to receive the blessings, acknowledge them and give thanks while striving to respond to these blessings with lives of goodness and integrity. Covenants are not contracts or agreements between equal partners but express the outreach by God in creative love. God will always remain faithful to that outreach and promises expressed in the Covenants. The Covenant stories powerfully reveal the outreach of God in loving kindness but are stories rooted in human history and the material world of human surrounds, trauma and sin as well as blessings. In recent times,

ecological science, scriptural scholarship and historical movements combine to help us read the five Covenants with expanded and deeper understanding. Covenants are about real life and display the Earth rooted nature of God’s embrace. While it is true that all Scripture witnesses to God’s abiding creative love, a focus on the Covenants offers a systematic approach to understanding environmental messages in the Bible. They give a framework which helps us to be specific in our belief in a self-giving God of loving outreach as well as a God of ongoing compassion towards human folly. Rooted in history they save us from vague generalisations about creation. This book systematically expands on these five Covenants in the light of the Christian call to ecological conversion and ecological vocation reiterated in Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis spelt out in his new teaching on integral ecology.

Mission, Laudato Si’ and Eucharistic Practice

hapter Two in this book looks at both the style and the content of Gospel mission presented by Pope Francis in his 2014 Exhortation on Mission Evangelium Gaudium (EG). He called for good pastoral practice and prayerful celebration that reads the sign of the times. A pastorally sensitive celebration of the Eucharist can stimulate faith communities to bring the environmental encyclical of Pope Francis to life in the local place where they live knowing that All creation shares in the joy of salvation (EG #4). We can recall the guidelines offered by Pope Francis in his Exhortation for a new phase of evangelisation and particularly a fruitful celebration of the Eucharist (EG #17). As communities of missionary disciples in Jesus, believers carefully watch the signs of the times (EG #51) especially when humanity is facing a turning point in history (EG #52). The Pope

says, our mission outreach must include care for whatever is fragile, like the environment, which is defenceless before the interests of a deified market (EG #56). Pope Francis details at length how our missionary call can be nourished by good pastoral practice. It is nourished as a community when the Eucharistic celebration is attractive with well-prepared homilies and liturgical practice (EG #73-128). Priests must be prepared from seminary days (EG #72). Homilies must be applied to the real life of believers living in modern times (EG #135-164). The Pope ask for good liturgy that gives believers the spiritual motivations for mission, including care for Earth as our common home, and fortifies the confidence of believers to dialogue with society on common action.

Resources for Celebrating a September Catholic Season of Creation

he core pages of this book are a Resource. It suggests ways of planning celebrations of communal prayer in the Eucharist to bring to life the Pope’s 2015 environmental encyclical. Eucharist is like a fountain bubbling up to new life, a grace filled moment. These core pages carry eighteen two-page resource collections. Each of the two pages offers suggestions for praying the Scriptural Readings of a particular Sundays in September with environmental awareness. These core pages cover eighteen Sundays to allow for the changing readings in different liturgical years A, B and C according to the changing date of Easter. Each of the two page resource begins with extracts from the readings of the Catholic Lectionary on a particular Sunday. The designated Scripture of the present Lectionary is read with ecological eyes as the starting point to draw out its creation implications indicating - a grace to remember, what to give thanks for and a basis for intercessions.

To support the Scriptural insights that help us remember God’s blessings for each particular Sunday there follows a number of suggestions: brief introductions, examples of Prayers of the Faithful, historical explanations about a Season of Creation, creation insights in the Scriptural Covenants, possible spiritual pathways, stories of ecologically sensitive champions and saints, insights from the science of ecology, local eco-cultural issues expressed in Australian literature, hymns, plus relevant quotes from Laudato Si’ and possible actions. Many of the suggestions supporting the readings are reminders about the sometimes forgotten breadth of the Catholic tradition. Taken as a resource, these core pages offer help in preparing the tone and message of the entire Eucharistic celebration and particularly the homily. Sunday liturgy planners and the celebrant can weave these suggestions into the Mass or homily in any way they like as a way of helping bring Laudato Si’ to life.

Advent and Lent Online-Resources in the Spirit of Laudato Si’

his section suggests some ways to celebrate the liturgical seasons of Lent and Advent with the spirit of Laudato Si’ in mind. The grace of God is one - no one liturgical season is without prayer that acknowledges God the Creator or without the call to ecological conversion in Christ or ignores the ecological vocation of all the baptised. Resource suggestions for the three year liturgical cycle of Advent draw mainly from the Scripture readings designated in the Lectionary. The tone of these readings - waiting, longing and watching- lends them to be read

with ecological sensitivity. The style of the suggestions offered in this Advent Resource is similar to the style of the September Creation Season resources but not as extensive. The resources offered for Lent take a different approach. They focus largely on the environment itself and a call for Lenten conversion from a local Australian perspective of Land, Forests and Water. These Advent and Lenten resources are available as publications on the Columban website.

Appendix: A Proposal for a Season of Creation in the Liturgical Year

he appendix carries a proposal to create an official Season of Creation in the Liturgical Year of the Catholic Church. It was first published in the Australasian Catholic Record April 2016. Creating an official Season of Creation is a long term task and one that would equal the major liturgical changes initiated at Vatican II. However, it is not a far out or an impossible proposal. That the Vatican II liturgical reform was done by liturgical and scriptural scholars in conjunction with Catholic bishops from around the world offers an example of what is possible, if there is the will. The Church is ever under reform. Creating a Season of Creation within the liturgical cycle would be just another step on the Church’s journey through history. It is of note that in many Christian Churches, September has already been designated as a Season of Creation, or Creation Time, culminating with the feast of St Francis 4 September. Pope Francis and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch have both named 1 September as Creation Day. This shows that the importance of addressing the world’s environmental crisis in liturgical prayer is now an evolving trend that is also ecumenical.

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CHAPTER ONE

Scriptural Covenants as a Basis for a Liturgical Season of Creation This chapter looks at one possible way of creating a Scriptural basis for celebrating liturgically a Season of Creation by exploring the five Covenants in the Bible. These Covenants capture in story the blessings of God in both the gift of Earth itself and in the historical journey of God’s Chosen People.

“God-EarthHumanity are in relationship.” (Laudato Si’, LS #66)

he loving kindness of God given as an outpouring of God’s own self is revealed in cosmic and human history. God does this in spite of the foibles of the human heart. As Pope Francis writes, God-Earth-Humanity are in relationship (Laudato Si’, LS #66). Some people object saying that because all Scripture witnesses to the creative love of God, no special liturgical Season is needed. However, a systematic liturgical approach has advantages. Focusing on the Covenants offers an organised approach to explore just how creation is presented in the Scriptures. Such an approach can gradually nourish the faithful to better understand creation and lead them to progressively grow into communion with creation and with God. This aim is in line with the goal of the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council; to give the faithful a fuller diet of Scripture as foundation for spiritual growth. What systematic approach is chosen to explore Scripture’s creation messages is important.

An emerging ecumenical movement has nominated the four Sundays in September leading up to the feast day of St Francis to be celebrated as a Season of Creation. While this initiative is a good beginning it has taken divergent forms. Some Church communities focus on the beauty of creation. Many begin their prayer with general ecological issues and develop themes around physical aspects of the natural world. Some communities begin from local environmental problems that have a strong social justice component, such as the effect of pollution on public health or the need to live on ancestral lands and indigenous rights. These varied approaches are very understandable as environmental issues have been made glaringly clear in modern times by the work of environmental scientists revealed in the media. It needs to be acknowledged that the work of science itself is a blessing as it expands human understanding. However, there are indications that some creation focused liturgies have moved away from a full Scriptural reading of the current

Expanded understanding of the Covenants

The suggestions offered in this book about celebrating creation in liturgical prayer draw from an expanded understanding of the five Scriptural Covenants. 1. G od’s Covenant with Noah to never again harm the natural world could also embrace the way God inspires, leads and comforts humanity when it faces apocalyptic predictions. Reflections could include the story of the great debate between God and Job about the evolving cycles of the cosmic and animal spheres as revealing of God’s creative ways. 2. The Covenant with Abraham, who is forced to leave Ur, promises God’s blessings for his descendants and all nations. It could also consider the fate of environmental refugees as well as show the importance of belonging to land and being sustained by its fruits. 3. T he Moses Covenant with God’s Chosen People could look to God’s abiding presence in the struggles of human history - creating just laws that show compassion for the poor and growing a peaceful home symbolised by the sabbatical rest for people and land. 4. The David Covenant where God promises to bless his line, ultimately in the maiden’s child Jesus, could also embrace the role of prophets to preach about the consequences of sin and the need to turn back to God, about repentance and God’s willingness to forgive. 5. The last Covenant is the person of Jesus the Christ - sent by the Father; God incarnate; prophet and healer, a teacher with authority; the new Adam; celebrating the Last Supper to seal his eternal Covenant; the cosmic Christ – reveals the fulfilment of God’s outreach in loving kindness, good news for all peoples and lands leading to the heavenly Jerusalem.

environmental crisis and a spiritual response. A limited reading leads at times to creating liturgies that favour the ‘nice’ side of the natural world. Others might take on a moralising or campaigning tone. There is a danger that a creation spirituality of deep communion between God- EarthHumanity might be smothered. COVENANTS IN THE BIBLE The five major Covenants recognised in the Bible are those made by God with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and finally in Jesus the Christ. Key to all Covenants was that God took the initiative in reaching out to grant blessings. The role of humanity is to receive these blessings and live them out. Not to be forgotten are the Scriptural promises made to Mary, the promise of Jesus to send an abiding Spirit and the promise of a New Heaven and New Earth. Each promise helps fill out the blessings of God revealed in the five Covenants of the Bible. Particularly in communal prayer, Israel remembered God’s blessings and gave thanks. In prayer it petitioned God to forgive mistakes. Based on promises of mercy within the Covenants, the people prayed to respond to God’s blessings with lives of goodness and integrity. The constant thrust in the books of the Bible Covenants makes the creative care and mercy of God glaringly clear. The Covenants reveal a long term and dynamic historical relationship between God, Earth and Humanity: a fundamental creative relationship united in the Trinity (LS #238-240). It would be unwise to take any one isolated Scriptural text as defining of God’s loving-outreach in creation, even texts from Genesis or Job. The totality of God’s action must be remembered and Earth with all its kin as family is the focus. That is why a capital letter is used for Earth in this book. In the Covenants, cosmic history and human history are one. God acts in this one stream of history. God’s outpouring of creative love in the entire Universe is continuous and has led to humanity being the only self-reflective conscious part of creation that is known (LS 220#). The Covenants are rooted in human history and the material world of people and their surrounds. The blessings given are made visible within the historical human journey rather than being based on some abstract philosophies. The Covenants powerfully revealed the outreach of God to all creation, within the realities of a people living on and with Earth. The realities captured in the Covenant stories form a solid basis for developing a fuller theology of Creation that can be expressed in communal liturgical celebration at this point in human history. Suggestions made in the core resource chapter of this book aim to capture a fuller reading of Scripture as a trustworthy starting point for prayer. The Covenants capture this Scriptural thrust and a fuller reading of this trust is explored in the physical and social parts of God’s creation story. While Scripture points to a wide range of God’s blessings revealed in creation, it also remembers the abuse of these blessings by people as they exercise their freedom as human beings. The Covenants in particular witness to the relational way God acts, drawing humanity along in a journey – a journey of love as well a journey of freedom that can lead to rebellion. As humanity journeys in freedom, for good or for evil, people and Earth alike suffer. Ecological science has made the abuse of Earth very clear. As a result, prayers of lament, repentance and forgiveness become integral parts of the Covenant stories. It seems to be a particular blessing in these times that the ecological sciences, scriptural scholarship and ecological movements combine to help in reading the five Covenants with expanded understanding.

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Taken as a total package, Scriptural stories about the creative outreach of God in human history with loving kindness is alluring. It is Good News to be preached and lived out by all on Earth as their common home. This deeper understanding of God reaching out in Scriptural Covenants helps to tease out the meaning of the papal call to ecological conversion and papal teaching on integral ecology. Celebrating these deeper meanings in liturgical prayer can help bring to life Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’. ENVIRONMENTAL THEMES This book regards the Covenants as offering both a solid basis for the development of a fuller theology of Creation and a systematic approach to enhance liturgical celebration suitable to the present era. By way of contrast, this book regards environmental problems and ecological categories, when taken alone, as less capable of forming the basis for growing a liturgical Season of Creation that is in the Catholic tradition. This distinction between a focus on God’s creation blessings or on ecological problems by themselves is clear in Laudato Si’. • While Pope Francis recognises the major problems of pollution, climate change, water and loss of biodiversity (LS#17-42), he has an equally long section that puts these problems in the context of the declining quality of human life and breakdown of society, global inequality and weak responses leading to divided opinions on what to do (LS #43-61). • Having outlined several environmental problems, the Pope’s emphasis is to reflect on them in the light of the Gospel of Creation wanting to refute distorted ideas about human dominion as a mistaken interpretation of Scripture (LS #62-100). • Then presenting a Christian anthropology, the Pope examines the human roots of the ecological crisis, particularly the arrogance associated with human centredness and mistaken ideas about progress based on the power of technology (LS #101-136). • From a faith perspective he then identifies a revolutionary new social reading of the environmental crisis under the banner of ‘integral ecology’ (LS #137-162). • He decidedly puts Church communities into the field of dialogue and calls for respectful dialogue with the international community to develop approaches to common action (LS #163-201). • The Pope concludes his revolutionary new social teaching with a call for ecological education and ecological spirituality leading to ecological conversion, changed lifestyles and a new Covenant between humanity and the environment (LS #202-221). • T he fruit of this new Covenant is lives of joy and peace in a loving society, celebrating in prayer a new found relationship between the Trinity and creation (LS #222-246). A hopeful vision of creation-blessings is the key to reading the Pope’s environmental encyclical and leads to a new prayer filled creation-

spirituality. Given the factual enormity of the global environmental crisis, it is understandable that some creation focused prayers take ecological issues as their starting point. However, this approach gives cause for misgivings. First, it may become a quest for direct Scriptural teaching on specific ecological problems that pushes the texts too far. Second, a model that focuses on particular ecological issues each Sunday could lead to an overemphasis on themes, ethics and moral responsibility - a mean and narrow spirituality. It is true that breaking the relationship between God-Earth-Humanity is a sin because it breaks God given harmony. It is also true that an emphasis on environmental issues may help in preaching and promoting action. However, the tone given may ultimately detract from seeking a spiritual experience of God as Creator. It might grow weak on creation theology and as a consequence, liturgical prayer may be distorted. The focus on ‘themes’ in liturgy often has social justice roots. An unofficial ethically-orientated liturgical year has emerged in recent times as Sundays have variously been designated for refugees, the homeless,

victims of violence and the like. However, to extend this emphasis on ethics and morals to eco-ethics and eco-morality as a response to growing ecological awareness could ultimately be a distortion of Church mission, creation theology and its liturgical expression. Promoting ecologically themed liturgy may even carry the ring of a political agenda or campaign slogan. ‘Ecological justice’ might become just another justice issue to put along beside ‘social justice’ and miss the deep mystery of creation. Further pressure for an ethically themed liturgical focus comes from the secular world as it nominates ‘Earth Day’ and the like. Even the 2015 Catholic initiative nominating April as ‘Care 4 Creation Month’ may be in

this vein. Ultimately an ecological-themed approach may prove a mistake – ecological justice becoming just another fringe effort isolated from the mainstream liturgical life of faith communities and Church mission. SPIRITUAL READING OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ offers a wide analysis in his call to Catholics to follow an ecological vocation made visible in mission and prayer. Living out this ecological vocation grows communion with the God of creation and harmony with Earth, the common home of all our kin. The Pope’s emphasis is positive, on creation graces remembered rather than themes. While he gladly says, We are the beneficiaries of two centuries of enormous waves of [technological] change (LS #102), he warns about a narrow focus, especially a one-dimensional technocratic paradigm as if technology will give all the answers (LS #106). Pope Francis says that Christians are grateful to the scientists and campaigners who have alerted us to the global environmental crisis, but he also says, followers of Jesus have a vocation to offer a spiritual reading of the crisis as they enter into genuine dialogue with the world in what will become a mutual learning fruitful for both (LS #13-14, 62). The Pope makes this appeal to followers of Christ: There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm (LS #111). Sadly, the Pope’s appeal to move forward in a bold cultural revolution (LS #114) is not being heard by some Church leaders with obstructionist attitudes (LS #14). Doubt and inactivity can be sown by appeals to such ideas as gradualism, often based on misinformation and denial. However, Pope Francis has set a radical agenda in Laudato Si’ if believers have an attitude to read it with eyes to see. NEW COVENANT AND EUCHARIST Pope Francis calls for a new Covenant between humanity and the environment (LS #209). This is radical. He suggests: Through our worship of God, we are invited to embrace the world on a different plane (LS #235). Writing on the centrality of the Mass to Catholic life he says: In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living centre of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: ‘Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country Church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world’. The Eucharist joins Heaven and Earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation (LS #236). … On

Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world (LS #237). Covenants in Scripture are about the ongoing relationship between God and his People. Most Covenants in the Old Testament were celebrated with the sacrifice of an animal which was cut in two, half taken by the people and half offered back to God as the giver of blessings. Sacrifice signified Israel’s relationship with God, but importantly, it was not a payment made for blessings received. That was the heresy of Pelagius. Some spiritual writers at times distort the Letter to the Hebrews by using the imagery of sacrifice for the death of Jesus on the Cross to turn it into a payment. But the death of Jesus signified a once and for all time giving of God in his Son. It was not a sacrifice to be repeated. In his resurrection Jesus ushers in a new relationship as he both returns to the Father and stays with the body of his followers the Church. God giving and the people accepting offer the key to understanding the meaning of Covenant, not sacrifice. The call of Pope Francis to follow an ecological vocation made visible in communal mission and prayer can well build on the five Covenants. They provide stories about the loving outpouring and abundant outreach of God in the totality of creation as well as stories about human responses, sometimes thankful and sometimes fickle. Believers can fruitfully bring these stories to their communal Eucharistic celebrations as they remember the realities of the contemporary environmental crisis. The breadth of God’s Covenant promises can enfold both environmental concerns and communal liturgical prayer. NEW LECTIONARY This book suggests that Scripture readings designated in the current Sunday Lectionary of the Catholic Church can be read with ecological eyes to create a Season of Creation during the Sundays of September. In an age of ecological crisis, it is one way for Catholics to take respect and care for Earth seriously. It is one way to take up the challenge given by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ to recognise God’s presence and action in the totality of creation – peoples, animals, land and sea, air and cosmos. Celebrating a Catholic Season of Creation is a powerful way for individuals and Catholic communities to take the Pope’s encyclical to heart. As a local Church ecumenical venture, many Protestant Church communities throughout the world have followed the initiative of Rev Dr Norman Habel who developed the first Season of Creation. Part of this venture was to encourage Churches to create a new lectionary of Scripture readings to back up the Sunday celebrations during September.

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Creating a new set of readings was a bridge too far for some Churches. At this stage, the Catholic Church in particular has found this too ambitious. However, while this book primarily suggests ways to read the present Catholic Lectionary with ecological eyes, it also suggests that in the future the Church officially create a Catholic liturgical Season of Creation in September and compile a totally revised Lectionary for the three year Sunday cycles (cf. Appendix). Creating an official Season of Creation is a long term task and one that would equal the major liturgical changes initiated at Vatican II. However, it is not impossible. The Vatican II liturgical reform was carried through by liturgical and scriptural scholars in conjunction with Catholic bishops from around the world. They showed what is possible, if there is the will. NOAH COVENANT God’s Covenant with Noah is often called the Forgotten Covenant (Gn 9:8-15). An expanded reading of this Covenant offers rich material for meditation, action and liturgical prayer. It helps in understanding the dynamics of evolution and respects the value of freedom for 21st Century hearers. God made an everlasting promise to the human race in Noah’s descendants, but also with every living creature, never to again destroy the Earth (Si 44:19). God gave the rainbow as the sign of this promise. It is a unilateral Covenant, no conditions, based solely on God’s own faithfulness and God’s own self (Jg 2:1).. It is about mutual relationship but not conditional. Zechariah proclaims that God is faithful to this unilateral Covenant made for every age (Lk 1:68-79). People must remain faithful, but if they sin, they repent before calamity overtakes them as in the story of Noah and the flood (Lk 17:26-30). Even the natural world suffers if Israel is unfaithful to the Covenant (Is 24:4-6). Salvation for the Chosen People is shown in the Heavens and Earth itself (Ps 96:11-12). God worked through the natural world to constantly save the Chosen People (Ps 105:2636) because God never takes back gifts already granted (Rm 11:29). God is a lover of life, loves all that exists in the Earth community or it would not have been made or sustained (Ws 11:25-26). The Covenant that brings peace that will not be shaken (Is 54:9-10). God liberates the whole of creation, even the physical world, so that in freedom it can attain its God given purpose (Rm 8:19-21). Reflection on Job helps fill out the Noah story. The book of Job is probably the closest in the Bible to an environmental reflection. God is angry with human arrogance and challenges Job to explain the design and beauty of the universe (Jb 38:2), and the source of its freedom (Job 39:5). Modern cosmology has greatly expanded human understanding. The planets, the world and all they contain witness to what could be named as a type of Universe Covenant. Biblical poetry says that, like a bride, God endowed creation with unique and beautiful diversity (Sg 1:5-6). Creation prompts believers to sing of creation (Ps 33:2-9). In a turning point in the Job story he resolved to learn from nature (Jb 27:1-4). God tells Job in no uncertain terms that setting the planets in space and the Earth on its cosmic foundation are all works of God (Jb 38:4-6). God gave creation the freedom to be itself, untamed like the crocodile (Jb 40:25-29). The world and every creature have their own dignity and integrity writes Pope Francis (LS #69). It is God’s work and humans do not control it (Ps 24:1-2). Rather, humanity is called to humbly learn from what God has initiated and grow in wisdom by observing the animals, birds, fish and all creatures, observing the seasons and cosmos cycles as God’s revelation (Jb 12:7-10). The action of God is dynamic and evolution like, revealed from the beginning in Genesis when the Spirit hovered over the void and God made earth and heaven (Gn 1:2; 2:4-6). God gradually grows an Earth that was declared very good (Gn 1:31). The history of the People of God is one of evolving adaptation as it moved across deserts, the fertile Egyptian delta to finally settle in the lands of Palestine. Jesus shows he is familiar with the love of God expressed in the workings of the systems of the natural world – animals and seasons, fishing and fruiting trees, the lilies of the field and even the sparrow. An everlasting Covenant with Adam in the gift of creation itself is taken for granted in Scripture (Is 24:5; Ho 6:7) just as the loving relationship of parent-child or friendship are rarely spoken of in Covenant terms (Pr 18:24; I S 18:3). In the parables Jesus presumes God’s faithfulness in creation as he invited his disciples to have ears to hear and eyes to see, to learn how the seed sprouts (Mt 13:4-9). The nature parables of Jesus about the mustard seed sprouting, the yeast multiplying and the crop with varying yields can be taken as images of an Evolution Covenant (Lk 13:18-21). Jesus is familiar with the love of God expressed in the changing seasons and systems of the natural world, using their images of evolving change to teach his followers. Socially Jesus slowly grows the belief of the disciples about who are children of God as he praised the faith of the pagan Canaanite woman (Mt 15:28). An evolution like Covenant was reinforced socially under the Holy Spirit as Church communities grew across nations (Ac 16:9-10).

As argued in the Appendix, creating an official Catholic liturgical Season of Creation would bring multiple side benefits and blessings. • It would serve the evangelising mission of the Church in an age of ecological crisis. • Internally, it would help open believers to a new spiritual pathway of communion between God-EarthHumanity. • In recent decades, Mission Theology has come to understand that dialogue is a new word for mission. Respectful dialogue with the modern and secular world and the scientific world around ecology would be of mutual benefit. • It would provide the opportunity to correct some ‘clunky’ and dated liturgical language and recapture the voice of women in the Scriptures. • It might help the Church regain some integrity in a time when its reputation has been tarnished. • At the ecumenical level, officially designating a Catholic Season of Creation would deepen dialogue with both Western and Orthodox Christian communities. • In a world of inter religious tensions, the language of ecology is already supplying a common language for dialogue between science and multi-faith communities in the Faith and Ecology Network (FEN) based in Sydney. Creating an official Catholic liturgical Season of Creation together with a revised Lectionary is an immense task. It is a long term project: however, the benefits for many players would be significant.

The Spirit challenged Peter and Paul to change their theology and accept God’s children outside of Israel (Ac 10:34-36). However, the heart of Church communities grew coarse in some eras, became self-satisfied, failed to see and hear, refusing to evolve (Ac 28:26-27). In the midst of life changing events, disciples must not be deceived by the simplistic, but instead read the signs of the times (Mt 24:4-6). A wide reading of the Noah Covenant opens out thinking on the current ecological crisis. God is faithful to creation. Humanity is to learn about the world processes that God wills, respect the integrity with which God endowed the universe and ultimately find God in the ways Earth has evolved – a rich basis for both contemplation and liturgical prayer. ABRAHAM COVENANT God promised to bless Abraham and his descendants as his own special people and through them bless the whole world (Gn 12:1-3). The Abraham story is a rich source for learning how God thinks and acts towards landless migrant peoples. Living in Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham and his family were probably prompted by survival in a time of climate change, as evidenced by scientists, to leave Ur and set out for a land that God would show them (Gn 11:31). His faith was accounted to him as righteousness and a Covenant was made (Gn 15:6-18). This Covenant was repeated with Isaac, son of Sarah (Gn 17:19) and Stephen recalled the story (Ac 7:1-8). Jesus chided the Jewish leaders for not being faithful to the Covenant God formed with their ancestors (Mt 15:1-9). God constantly acts in the universe, extending over both geological and human time scales can be regarded as a type of History Covenant. Salvation History for the People of God runs from stories about Abraham and his descendants, judges and kings, prophets and priests until its fulfilment in Jesus the Christ (Mk 1:9-11, 14-15). It is both human history and personal journey, but importantly, it is a spiritual history. The migration of the Chosen People forged a spiritual language. It spoke of God in terms of giving the people a place to belong as home and enjoying Earth’s natural fruits. Rooted in Earth like Adam, the history of the People Israel shows God using even the pagan kingdoms of Pharaoh (Rm 9:17) and Cyrus (Is 40:1-6) to mould a spiritual journey with God at their side (Ps 46:1-4). With God’s law written in their hearts (Jr 31:33-34) God’s people were on a pathway to wisdom (Pr 3:1-6). Believers in God would endure trials (Jm 1:2) but God was a lamp to guide their journey (Ps 119:105). Earth and history is the place where salvation and life comes to fullness in God’s providence (Mt 6:25-34). That God created a home for his people is a type of Land Covenant. The story of Adam and Eve exiled from the Garden to become wanderers sets the scene (Gn 3:23). God gradually won the hearts and minds of a landless-migrant people, giving them a place to live and belong. Later when exiled in Egypt brought on by starvation in their own lands, God freed the people (Ex 3:7-8) and led them to a new promised land (Dt 9:1). David sings the story (2 S 23:3-5). Later again when God’s People

was exiled captives weeping in Babylon (Ps 137:4), God cared for them through Queen Esther (Est 4:12), freed them and returned them home to their own land (Ze 8:7-8). It is through the link of the People of God to the land that they first experienced compassion (Jr 42:11-13). The traumatised in anguish prayed for help (Ps 102:3-5). Even the beasts of the field and birds of the air are known by God (Ps 50:10-11). When the Covenant was renewed, compassion for the people of the towns they conquered and even care for their fruit trees was legislated (Dt 20:16-19). God constantly renews a type of Compassion Covenant with oppressed and alienated peoples - the outsiders. Israel grew to welcome the stranger (Dt 29:8-10). God hears the cry of the poor and the suffering (Zh 7:10; Ps 34:1-6). Elisha saved the widow and her children with the miracle of abundant oil (2 K 4:1-7). Jesus reiterated the quality of compassion expressed in the Abrahamic Covenant. He showed compassion for the poor widow but challenged the rich young man (Mt 19:16-24). He reached out to the marginalised tax collector and prostitute but confronted the money changers in the temple (Jn 2:14-16). The early Churches showed compassion across nations as they sent aid between communities (Ac 11:27-29). Even when the silver smiths tried to undermine compassion within the followers of Jesus the community persisted (Ac 19:26-27). The Abrahamic Covenant is foundational to God creating and caring for the People of Israel. It shows how God blesses all peoples on Earth. At this time when environmental issues engulf many nations and their ancestral lands, the story of Abraham helps Christian communities to reflect on the ways of God, leading to pray and action. THE MOSES COVENANT When the People of Israel, freed by God from serfdom in Egypt as promised to Abraham (Ex 2:24) and were camped at the base of Mount Sinai, God renewed the Covenant with them, continuing to carry them on eagle’s wings (Ex 19:3-6). It was a Covenant focused on God’s presence and leading the People. They remembered the relationship and gave thanks every Sabbath Day (Dt 5:12-15). Even when the People turned to worship the golden calf, the Covenant was not annulled since God was faithful (Nb 15:31; Ps 105:8). The People were not to enter into pacts with foreign gods (1 K 11:11). The Ten Words (Commandments) given to Moses were the foundation of a renewed Covenant which the Law filled out. Moses read the words of the Covenant to the people and they agreed to obey (Ex 24:3). They sprinkled the book of the Law and the people with blood to seal the Covenant (Ex 24:8). A ritual was enacted. This Covenant between God and the people of Israel grew in the minds of the people - I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jr 31:31-34; 32:38). God stayed close to the Chosen People; leading them as a pillar of fire at night to a new land (Ex 13:21), the same God who was present to Moses in the burning bush (Ex 3:2). There is joy living daily in God’s

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presence (Ps 104:10-14). God upholds all creatures and systems of Earth (Ps 65:9-13), created all that exists so that we live, and move and exist within the divine presence (Ac 17:24-28). But it is God who owns and clothes land and people (Dt 10:14), blesses town and country, soil and livestock, households and their comings and goings (Dt 28:3-6). God makes a home among human kind (Rv 21:3). God guided the People Israel to survive as a society and live in peace through the teaching of the Ten Commandments amplified in the Law, the Pentateuch and Torah. It was like a holiness code (Lv ch. 26). It defined

afflictions (Jb 2:7) so that Job even laments the day he was born (Jb 3:34) before he learns to know God revealed even in the world of nature (Jb 42:2-3). Jesus predicted breakdowns in relationships in the human journey towards new life with sorrows for himself and his followers (Mk 13:5-13). He warns his followers to be awake to dangers (Mk 13:28-33). The human story of suffering is paralleled in the natural world which groans to be set free (Rm 8:19-22). But in Christ Jesus, the Cross has flowered to become the Tree of Life (Gn 2:9; Rv 2:7, 22:19; Ezk 31:3-9). Theologies of Death

issues of moral behaviour, religious practice and government to make the simple wise (Ps 19:7). It established a humanitarian style of justice, love and walking humbly (Mi 6:8). Every aspect of life was regulated. Circumcision of males was its sign. The weekly Sabbath rest and Jubilee years were to be observed by the people (Lv 25:2-22) for land, animals and slaves and stranger alike (Ex 23:12). Strangers, widows and orphans were provided for (Ex 22:21-24). Human health was safeguarded by declaring food from animals clean or unclean (Lv Chs 11-16). When people polluted the land (Nb 35:3334), wantonly cut trees (Dt 20:19), defiled the land so grass withers and animals die (Jr 12:4) and muddied waters (Ez 34:17-18); these added to the Earthly signs of Israel breaking God’s Covenant (Is 24:4-6). Through observing these laws and customs the social and individual peace was the end result. God wanted the blessings of peace for the People symbolised by the lion and lamb lying down together that would swell up like the waters of the sea (Is 11:6-9). Scripture witnesses to the abiding promise of God to give peace (Ps 29:11) so that it becomes a type of Covenant in itself. Peace is a fruit of God’s blessings. Peace was conferred on members of the body of Christ (Col 3:15) since peace was a fruit of God’s Spirit (Ga 5:22). Peace must be sought after (1 P 3:11) in spite of the challenges of fire cast on the Earth (Mt 10:34). Evil is to be repaid with good (Rm 12:17-21) because peace flows from love (Jn 14:27). Individuals are called to fight the good fight in their personal history (1 Tm 6:12), not obsessed with worry about what they need for life but trust the providence of God (Ph 4:6). Human history and the lives of individual people are integral and unique within God’s creation writes Pope Francis (LS #81). God wills that humanity enter a type of Struggle Covenant immersed in cycles of death and new life as people journey and strive to choose the good, to live with integrity (Pr 11:1-3). Earning one’s bread in pain and suffering is the human state for all descendants of Adam and Eve (Gn 3:17-19, 23). With its roots in Earth’s cycles, humanity knows hardship (Ps 90:4-10). Israel would know distress (Joel 2:2). Just like abused and suffering people, the land would mourn (Ho 4:1-3) and vomit out offenders (Lv 18:26,28). God caring for the land and renewing it fills out a Covenant of blessing and faithfulness with Israel (Ps 104:10-14, 29-30). Satan challenged Job to find the presence or absence of God in his

and Resurrection are united. Debate arose in the early Church about the place of the Jewish law for Christian believers. Jesus summarised the law in two commands of love - love God and love neighbour (Mt 22:36-40). God living in us means we can love one another (1Jn 4:11-12). The law is but a signpost indicating what is sinful (Rm 7:7) but does not of itself give life (Gl 13:21). Love revealed in Jesus gives what the law cannot (Rm 8:3) and fulfils the law (Mt 5:17). In modern times as nations regulate to face the environmental crisis Pope Francis teaches that laws by themselves are not enough. In Laudato Si’ he writes Creation is of the order of love (LS #77). The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God (LS #83). The Moses Covenant helps with a faith filled reflection on historical ways forward for all nations: bread and wine for liturgical prayer. DAVID COVENANT The stories about King David emphasis the fact that God takes the initiative in all things and repentance is needed when human pride rejects the ways of God. Pope Francis identifies human arrogance as the root cause of modern environmental problems. Believers are called to lament their abuse of Earth as the common home of all. Israel lamented communally and publicly. God renewed the Covenant with King David (2 Ch 21:7) establishing his line as the royal heirs to the throne of the nation Israel (2 S 7:12-13). This promise was fulfilled in Jesus, born of Mary and descendant in the line of David (Mt 1:1). Peter preached this to the Jews (Ac 2:29-36). However, David’s reign was one of wars and intrigue and he even had Uriah killed because David coveted his wife Bathsheba (2 S 11:15). Human sin and folly were on public display but David repented of his sin and begs for mercy on hearing the word of the prophet (Ps 51). The continuing loving kindness of God and care for the Chosen People is shown through both the female and male prophets of Israel. God renewed the Covenant by speaking through the spirit of the prophets (Is 59:21). As the People spread in the diaspora, the Law keep them true to the Covenant (Dn 11:28). Ultimately the Law is written on the People’s hearts (Jr 31:31). Women are prominent in God’s economy of salvation as prophets and leaders. Huldah the female prophet called for repentance (2 K 22:15-

20). The midwives Shiphrah and Puah defied the pharaoh’s law to save Israel’s male children (Ex 1:15-17). Deborah was a leader and mother to Israel (Jdt 4:4-9, 5:7), singing a hymn of thanksgiving and worship (Jdt ch 9). The pleas of Esther saved her people from annihilation (Est 4:15-17). Judith, devout and wise, counselled the elders not to put God to the test (Jdt 8:11-17). The people recognise in song that the Almighty does great things (Ps 126:3). The proud will be pulled down (Ezk 17:24). The role of women comes to fulfilment and powerfully expressed in the Magnificat which might be called the Mary Covenant (Lk 1:46-55). In salvation history God looks with favour on the lowly handmaid (1 S 1:11). After the resurrection, Mary Magdalene is sent by Jesus as a messenger to the disciples (Jn 20:17) while Phoebe and other women were deacons among the apostolic communities (Rm 16:1). Jesus taught through female images of God as he compared God’s own self to a hen gathering her chicks (Mt 23:37-38). Paul likens setting up Church communities to giving birth (Ga 4:19). God gave birth to Israel creating a new meaning to fertility (Judges 2:11), producing new fruit unlike that of the old fertility gods (Ho 9:10). Earthly processes, male and female, are recognised as part of God’s outreach in the Covenants crowned by the spiritual rebirth of baptism (Jn 3:5-8). Throughout the history of Israel God raised up prophets to challenge his people by preaching repentance to protect the vineyard of Israel (Is 5:1-2, 6). The prophets confronted the lack of integrity in an unfaithful nation, pointing to the consequences of unjust self-centred greed (Mi 2:13) shown as both internal decay of the people and external oppression of

the nation weeping in exile (Ps 137:1). The usual practice in war of using women from conquered nations (Ze 14:2), taking them as booty and making them slaves (Dt 20:14) needed to be changed (Phm 1:16). Through words and eccentric actions, even going naked (Is 20:2) or calling the nation of Israel a whore (Ho 2:2), prophets preached that the day of reckoning is coming (Am 6:3-8). But the prophets also promised that by repentance, God would breathe new life into dry bones (Ezk 37:9). The people would be reconciled if they returned to God with all their heart (Jl 2:12). Moses had promised that God’s Covenant would circumcise the people’s hearts (Dt 30:6). Job taught that arrogance often comes after good deeds (Jb 4:6), blinding those who do good to the fact that God initiates all that is good and wondrous (Jb 5:17). But the weeping of those lost or unsure is turned to joy (Ps 126:1-6). The breath of God keeps renewing the world (Ps 104:27-30). God’s saves the nation if it repents in sackcloth, replants the garden and rebuilds its ruins (Is 58:1-12). As a prophet, Jesus preached a type of Repentance Covenant. He taught apocalyptic disaster for an unfaithful Jerusalem (Mt 24:15-25) reiterating the need to turn to God in repentance (Dn 9:3). He told the parable about human owners arrogantly taking the inheritance gifted by God as if it was their own (Mk 12:1-9). Jesus left a type of Covenant in promising his Spirit as an abiding companion until the end of time (Jn 16:7-8,13), the same Spirit who had led the prophets to teach about the consequences of breaking the Covenant (Ezk 11:5; Mi 3:8; Ze 7:12). The gift of the Spirit accompanies

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the followers of Jesus into the world, gracing them with power to boldly preach the Good News and witness before judges (Ac 5:25-26, 40-42). Outsiders held the followers of Jesus in respect when they saw their good deeds of healing and sharing their goods in common inspired by the abiding Spirit (Ac 2:42-45). Wisdom and justice are joined as one by the Spirit as shown by the early Christians confronting the greed that puts the Holy Spirit to the test (Ac 5:9). In stories associated with the lineage of King David, the initiative of God giving blessings to the People of Israel continues. God is like the loving father on the look out to forgive sin when repentance is shown (Lk 15:11-32). The Spirit is active in guiding the People through the prophets and upholds the integral role of women in salvation history. At this time in human history when arrogant environmental abuses are becoming better known in the voice of Earth as prophet, the call to communal lament and asking forgiveness grows stronger. JESUS COVENANT Jesus himself is the mediator of a new Covenant between God and humanity (Heb 9:15). His life, death and resurrection form the touch stone for liturgical prayer about the fullness of creation – gift, abuse and fulfilment. God is incarnate. In a parallel thought Pope Francis writes, Earth is Mother and Sister and our very bodies are made from her elements (LG #1-2). Paul wrote of the two Covenants, one originating from Mount Sinai and bound by law, the other coming from Jerusalem above that gives a new freedom in Christ (Ga 4:24-26). The death of Jesus seals this new Covenant with the shedding of his blood (Mt 26:28). The idea of a new Covenant originated with the promise that God would accomplish for his people what the old Covenant had failed to do (Jr 31:31-34; Heb 11:7-13). Jesus gives himself to ratify the new Covenant (Heb 9:28). Jesus explained all this to his followers (Lk 24:25-27). Peter preached Jesus as the Christ and the people were converted (Ac 2:22-24, 36-39). God gives his Son as the new Jesus Covenant – teacher and prophet, healer and saviour. In his human bodily self the Word made flesh is destined for the fall and rise of many (Lk 2:34). Jesus was called Teacher when he stood up to teach in the synagogue (Is 61:1-2) and the crowds were amazed at his wisdom (Lk 4:16-22). Jesus, the Wisdom of God, is a mirror of God’s own self and a blessing for all peoples (Ws 7:26-30). He was called Prophet as ordinary people welcomed him rejoicing since God’s love is everlasting (Mt 21:6-11; Ps 118:1-4, 28-29). Jesus was healer of bodies, the possessed and the mean spirited (Mt 4:23-25). His power extended to the natural world so that wind and waves obey (Mk 4:35-41). Curing the sick and freeing the groaning Earth from bondage are works of the same healing God (Rm 8:19-21). In love he reached out to the tax collector (Lk 19:1-10), loved his friends (Jn 11:5) and could even be betrayed with a kiss (Mk 14:46). As Jesus healed the leper, cured the sick and cast out devils, his fame spread (Mt 4:23-25).

A Covenant of healing was the background for the apostolic community prayers for God to physically cure the sick (Jm 5:14-15). God was a loving father in the story of Adam (Gn 2:5-10) even when Adam’s sin was punished (Gn 3:16-19). Made in the image of God, humankind found its habitat, its home, as an Earth creature. The People of Israel repeated the story of God loving creation into existence then fathering and mothering the nation like a child (Hos 11:3-4). They lit the Havdalah candle as a sign of a spiritual eight day of the week remembering God journeying with them over time in love. They became co-creators in God’s ongoing creation history (Ps 104:5-6) and became a mother to nations (Gn 17:16). Jesus is the New Adam who heals all broken relationship with the Creator God (1 Co 15:45-49). Jesus knew God as a loving Father and prayed to share God’s life with his disciples (Jn 17:1-4). The legacy of both the old and the new Adam is a reality in every generation as it chooses not to live with the consequences of its choices (Rm 6:12-14). As each generation journeys it keeps retelling the story of the Covenants, giving itself to be co-creators with God in the Risen Christ to create a transformed Earth (1 Co 1:4-9). At the Last Supper Jesus gathered around a table with his disciples, calling them his friends, and initiated a Eucharistic Covenant. Together they celebrated the Passover meal (Ex 12:14-17) with new meaning (Mt 26:26-29). The Eucharist set the model for the followers of Jesus to initiate a communal celebration done in memory of him (Lk 22:19). It is a foretaste of eternal communion in a banquet with God (Is 25:6-8), the one who shepherds the flock (Ps 23:1-6). Eucharist is eschatological in scope as its meanings oscillate between dream and reality. The Eucharist images the equal sharing among people of earthly food (1 Co 11:17-22), tells of generously nourishing the gift of bread to the people (Mk 6:36-44; 8:1-9). The hungry have special claim to be fed based on the Eucharistic promises. As David did, the hungry must be fed in spite of man-made rules (Lv 24:5-9). The poor come to the waters when thirsty, buy corn without money (Is 55:1-2). Sharing with the poor is a sign of a healthy community (Jm 2:14). With Jesus as the vine and his followers the branches, relationships around food will never be the same again (Jn 15:1-5). The death of Jesus is prominent in the Gospel. When Jesus died, darkness covered the land and the temple curtain was torn (Mk 15:33-38). The Earth itself is caught up in the lament of Jesus (Ps 22:1). Apocalyptic writings about calamity and dark days are part of Scriptural revelations connected with the actions of God (Mt 24:15-21). But God will only lay waste to Earth leaving it writhing and mourning because the people have broken the Covenant (Is 24:1-6). Earthquakes and floods feature in apocalyptic literature as signs calling for a change of heart (Rv 16:8-9). Sack cloth and ashes were worn instead of finery (Jl 3:24) as a sign of repentance and hearts torn (Jl 2:13). However, an apocalyptic vision of liberation is given as the Chariot of Yahweh (Ezk 1:4-12). The goal, life with God in paradise, was written about

in apocalyptic terms as the vision of the New Jerusalem. But at its centre was the presence of God living among people (Rv 21:3). Trials reinforce the Earth bound nature of salvation (2 Tm 3:1) Disasters and calamities are real and cause pain for many people on the human journey, but, all things can be made to work for good for those who love God (Rm 8:28). In the resurrection, Jesus is Lord of both heaven and Earth. The prologue of John’s Gospel proclaims a type of Cosmic Covenant in Jesus as the Word of God made flesh (Jn 1:1-5). The pagan Centurion acknowledged God present in Jesus as a human being (Mk 15:39). God initiated a plan of salvation in Jesus for the entire cosmos as the Christ (Ep 1:9-10) putting the risen Lord as head over every power (Col 1:14-17). The Cosmic Christ connects with the end time of judgement (Mt 25:3440). Humanity must be ready every day to give account to the one who judges the living and the dead (1 P 3:10). The second coming of Christ brings fulfilment to the human journey (1 Th 4:16-17). Many apocalyptic writings peppering the Scriptures give a perspective of time beyond time, God’s perspective, eschatological time (Is 51:6). The apostolic Church discerned that Christ gave the Spirit for all peoples and nations (Ac 15:6-9). That God was actively present to the culture of every land was the Good News the apostles proclaimed to the nations (Ac 13:46-47). As a type of Covenant, the commission they had been given as the followers of Jesus was to proclaim the mission of Christ Jesus to all creation (Mk 16:15). Jesus is the ultimate Covenant given by God in the Son incarnate.

Previous Covenants and promises must be interpreted in the light of Christ. Liturgy remembers that Jesus come to bring life to the full so that both Earth and People are blessed in the Christ of God (Jn 10:10). CONCLUSION This chapter has explored recurring stories in Scripture exemplified in the Covenants as a Scriptural basis for celebrating a liturgical Season of Creation. They tell of the ongoing relationship between God-EarthHumanity. While not an exhaustive study of the Covenants, in any dictionary of the Bible there is ample evidence about the creative outflowing and loving kindness of God revealed in cosmic and human history. That is the story of creation. The blessings of God are given for every creature of Earth and for all humanity on Earth, sharing it as a common home. It is one family according to the words of St Francis. Through God’s abiding presence, the foibles of the human heart can be overcome in the human journey. Jesus Christ has made a new Covenant with us in his own self, both friend and cosmic Lord. At this stage in the human journey when the every part of the planet is plunged into environmental crisis, believing communities can remember in prayer the abiding presence of God in creation witnessed to in the Scriptures. It forms a solid basis for both challenging reflection and celebration during September as a liturgical Season of Creation.

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CHAPTER TWO

Mission, Laudato Si’ and Eucharistic Practice “We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures.” (EG #215)

n the opening paragraph of the 2014 Exhortation on Mission, Evangelii Gaudium (EG), Pope Francis wrote, I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelisation … pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come (EG #1). Importantly he goes on to say, All creation shares in the joy of salvation (EG #4). The Pope writes that humanity is facing a turning point in history (EG #52) and goes on to say that the agenda for Catholic mission outreach must include care for whatever is fragile, like the environment, which is defenceless before the interests of a deified market (EG #56). These words foreshadowed his environmental encyclical of a year later, Laudato Si’ on Care for our Common Home (LS). The Pope explains at length the environmental dimension of mission by introducing a package of issues under the phrase integral ecology. All Catholics are called to evangelise in the world by actively engaging with a bundle of connected spheres – ecology, care for the poor, economics, politics, human arrogance, human fulfilment and life style. It is in these spheres where the smell of

the sheep is to be found, where the Gospel is to be lived and witness given. The Pope has joined the work of evangelising mission with a range of human activities including care for all parts of a fragile creation. The Pope suggests that by learning that everything in the total environment is our kin and loved by God means that with St Francis we can speak of Earth in terms of family. There are other weak and defenceless beings who are frequently at the mercy of economic interests or indiscriminate exploitation. I am speaking of creation as a whole. We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures … Thanks to our bodies, God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations (EG #215). In naming the God-Earth-Human relationship

Pope Francis has given us new language to grow our spiritual lives and the Gospel message we proclaim. Care for Earth as our common home is integral first, to the evangelising mission we have in Jesus and second, integral to a Catholic life of prayer, especially communal parish liturgy. On the first point, liturgical celebrations become but the gong booming and cymbal clashing if a community is not a living out its ecological vocation in love for Earth (1Cor 13.1). All that is written here presumes sincere effort on the part of individual Catholics and Catholic communities to concretely care for Earth by their actions. Liturgy as the summit and font of Catholic life rightly celebrates work done and inspires further action, but it is empty without committed day to day action. This whole book is based on the presumption that actual care for Earth is happening in individual and parish life. On the second point, this chapter focuses particularly on the guidelines Pope Francis offers for a fruitful liturgical celebration of the Eucharist in the context of modern missionary activity (EG #17). If these guidelines are followed, the Eucharist could stimulate faith communities to take up the environmental dimension of mission. When communities of believers get involved in the lives and world of people, including its environmental hopes and fears, they bring increasing commitment to care for Earth into liturgical prayer that carries the smell of the sheep (EG #24). Care for Earth is a powerful pathway to help usher in a new era in the evangelising mission but this commitment needs to be explicitly celebrated in the Sunday Eucharist of every parish. BAPTISM The first suggestion in the guidelines offered by Pope Francis is to renew the meaning of our baptism. He details how our missionary call to care for the fragile, including the environment, can be nourished. Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person [Jesus]), which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction (EG #7). In baptism believers remember the great creative and ongoing works of God (EG #13). The Church members are called to go forth from their own comfort zone, to go to the ‘peripheries’, to proclaim wherever there is need for the light of the Gospel of Jesus (EG #20). A renewed evangelisation does not only concern individuals but the entire Church (EG #26). For effective missionary outreach believers must understand that it is the entire People of God which evangelizes (EG #26). The Pope says, I encourage each particular Church to undertake a resolute process of discernment, purification and reform (EG #30). Mere administration can no longer be enough (EG #25). I exhort all the communities to an ‘ever watchful scrutiny of the signs of the times’ as it looks again at what is the content of its proclamation. At this turning-point in its history the joy of living frequently fades (EG #52). In a positive reading of the signs of the times, re-engaging with the totality of Earth has become an exciting experience for many people: a source of wonder, reason for thanksgiving and a stimulus to living life with meaning. Such meaning generates hope. Care for the environment

has become a life commitment for many people, even a secular vocation. Celebrating this re-engagement between God-Earth-Humanity becomes the bread and wine of the Eucharist for believing communities. BAPTISM AND LOCAL ISSUES Accepting baptism leads to a committed ethical response which is outside of the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutised, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous (EG #57). Pope Francis takes negative aspects of the marketplace as an opportunity for doing mission since followers of Jesus know that God can be a dangerous memory. Beyond the market the Church is trusted for her solidarity in building just societies and concern for people in greatest need (EG #65). However, as the Church sails into the choppy waters of current world problems, particularly the environmental crisis, the imperative grows to evangelize in a new way. To make the Gospel locally relevant in particular cultural settings, to inculturate the Gospel, it must challenge each culture and social group to a new purification and way of growth (EG #69). This involves proclaiming the Gospel within professional, scientific and academic circles. These groups often are the deciding factor in growing policies of care for the environment and adequate laws to protect the common home of all species. Evangelisation involves an encounter between faith, reason and the sciences with a view to developing new approaches (EG #132). The reality of environmental degradation shows up as both global problems and local issues. Normally it is a particular local ecological problem that first grabs attention – water quality, air pollution, traffic congestion, loss of a coral reef. Local problems are often the stimulus to what several Popes have named as a call to ecological conversion. God intended land for humanity, his special creatures, but not so that we might destroy it … turned the wonder world of the seas into underwater cemeteries bereft of colour and life (EG #215). As Christians we are called, like Saint Francis of Assisi, to watch over the fragile world in which we live, together with all its peoples (EG #216). It is not an either or situation, environment or people, but a call to serve the totality of God’s creation. The Pope offers this principle to operate under: The whole is greater than the part (EG #235-237). During the 20th Century the See-Judge-Act method of Pere Cardijn was adopted as a way of reforming working conditions in many parts of the world. I witnessed its effectiveness in helping bring labour reform to South Korean factories after the Korean War. Faced with a global environmental crisis the Cardijn method might give structure to an organised Catholic communal response. At the parish level the Cardijn method could pull together the expertise of business and labour leaders, environmental scientists and regulators, media people and organisers, young and old to promote environmental action that works from Gospel values. A group’s agenda could include helping form policies at local

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government levels, making Church schools and institutions energy-neutral or pushing Australian foreign aid budgets to provide alternative energy sources and local food growing for isolated communities. Parish groups might take the name ‘Friends of Francis’ and network through Catholic Earthcare Australia. Pope Francis writes, Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience (LS #217). EUCHARIST A second suggestion in the Pope’s guidelines for a communal renewal of evangelisation is for believers to celebrate the Eucharist in a way that gives vision to the community and nourishes it. Proclamation of the word of God, especially in the eucharistic assembly … a dialogue between God and his people … surpasses all forms of catechesis (EG #137). Well celebrated liturgy gives believers the spiritual motivations for mission, including care for Earth as our common home, and the confidence to dialogue with society (EG #17). But this depends on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community (EG #28). Church and its liturgy are not to be turned into a museum piece or something which is the property of a select few (EG #95). Pastoral liturgy allows for diversity and creativity. City and countryside differ expressed by different lifestyles, daily rhythms linked to places and people (EG #72). This challenges both believers and Church leaders to imagine innovative spaces and possibilities for prayer and communion which are more attractive and meaningful (EG #73). A renewed Eucharistic celebration nourishes mind and hearts to a new evangelisation capable of shedding light on these new ways of relating to God, to others and to the world around us (EG #74). Silence has a powerful place in celebrating the Eucharist. A short pause in silence gives space for the faithful to better participate in the celebration. It is sad when no time for silence follows proclamation of the Scripture or to hear an intention named in the Prayer of the Faithful followed without pause by the response. Listening to God in silence is a step towards a full appreciation of the mystery of Christ (GS #171). The Holy Spirit guided Mary to contemplation; to live with the mystery of what God was doing (GS #287). To help grow the mystical connection between God-Earth-Humanity, Pope Francis cited the example of Saints Francis of Assisi and John of the Cross who contemplated in silence (LS #12, 234). Busyness leads to riding rough-shod over both people and Earth (LS #225). To create evangelising Eucharistic communities that take seriously care for Earth as our common home formation of the laity and the evangelisation of professional and intellectual life represent a significant pastoral challenge (EG #102). To this end, Father Sean McDnagh suggests that the Church initiate a three year Synod on Laudato Si’ asking questions that Pope Francis has asked (On Care for our Common Home with Commentary, Orbis Books, 2016, p128). The synod process would meet first at the parish/ diocesan level to tease out local issues, second at the national level and lastly at the international level. In some ways, the Australian Church has already begun this process as it prepares for a Plenary in 2020. Preparation might well incorporate discernment on how to bring Laudato Si’ to life in Australian parishes. CLERGY AND HOMILY The third area in the Pope’s guidelines for evangelisation concerns priests. Christian dignity derives from baptism but reflection on the ministerial priesthood must focus on the meaning of service to be given for the Missionary People of God. Service is the way of Jesus (EG #104). Priests themselves need to be evangelised (EG #164). Pope Francis details the preaching task within the Eucharist (EG #135-159). Preaching within the liturgy is the touchstone for judging a pastor’s closeness and ability to communicate to his people (EG #135). It is the role of the preacher to lead believers to take an active part in historical happenings and not become mere onlookers to the environmental crisis that lets the Church gradually stagnate. Gospel, as preached in categories proper to each culture, will create a new synthesis with that particular culture (EG #129). Inculturated preaching consists in proclaiming the Gospel as a guided reading of an issue, a synthesis, suggesting spiritual tasks for the hearers (EG #143). Preaching needs to relate to the teaching of the entire Bible as handed on by the Church. This is an important principle of biblical interpretation (EG #148). The preacher needs to read and reflect (EG #149-153). The loving kindness of God is first revealed in the outpouring of God in creation itself. The second revelation is in the historical events of God’s loving kindness to the descendants of Abraham and the covenants made with the People of Israel. Finally, Jesus in his own self ushers

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CATHOLIC ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES While Pope Francis has presented the Church with a comprehensive vision of ecological vocation in Laudato Si’, will believers have ears to hear and eyes to see? A decade ago ACSJC published the booklet Catholics and Nature: Two hundred years of environmental attitudes in Australia by Charles Rue (Catholic Social Justice Series, No 57). Three issues stand out: • historically, most Catholics, like other Australians, just took the natural world as a given as they worked to advance themselves in the Lucky Country;

• interest in science took a backward step in the education of Catholic clergy at the beginning of the 20th century as training moved away from the ideals of a liberal education; • most Catholics who developed positive attitudes towards the natural world began their journey of awareness with direct experiences of nature itself. In spite of the local Conference of Catholic bishops setting up Catholic Earthcare Australia in 2003, environmental concerns for Catholics have rarely been seen as matters of ‘sin’ as Pope Francis now teaches (LS #8).

in the revelation of a new creation (cf Chapter on Covenants). Scripture affirms that Earth itself and human history are the place of revelation, and the first covenant that God made with Noah gives an unending promise of blessing to all Earth’s inhabitants based on God’s own faithfulness (Gen Ch 9). In the light of world’s historical environmental crisis and the encyclical of Pope Francis, care for the Earth as our common home must be preached. The preacher also needs to keep his ear to the people and to discover what it is that the faithful need to hear … it is profoundly religious and pastoral … a call which God causes to resound in the historical situation itself (EG #154). Another feature of a good homily is that it is positive … suggesting what we can do better (EG #159). The homily will offer suggestions about addressing the realities of politics, economics, science, health and more. This may prove challenging for the hearers in the pews. The radical vision of Pope Francis about evangelisation and care for Earth will stretch the moral imagination of believers. It will require sensitivity and patience from the pastor. But in spite of difficulties: … if this dimension is not properly brought out, there is a constant risk of distorting the authentic and integral meaning of the mission of evangelisation (EG #176). The Gospel is not merely about our personal relationship with God. …The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (EG #180). It involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this Earth somehow better that we found it. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us … The Earth is our common home and all of us are brothers and sisters (EG #183). Dialogue is mission. To evangelise in the modern world, clergy must prepare the community to go out and engage in dialogue. Liturgy is not only the summit but also the font of Church life. It must help form believers along the pathway of dialogue including dialogue about environmental issues. For the Church today, three areas of dialogue stand out, dialogue with states, dialogue with society – including dialogue with cultures and the sciences – and dialogue with other believers (EG #238). Dialogue that includes the full scope of environmental issues must recognise the expertise of others. Ecology is a recognised science with its own methods and ways of expressing its findings. Christians must respect these while clearly explaining its own methods and ways of expression. Dialogue between science and faith also belongs to the work of evangelisation … a synthesis between the responsible use of methods proper to the empirical sciences (EG #242). Dialogue is a new name for evangelisation.

POETRY AND MUSIC When followers of Jesus celebrate the Mass together they can take the words of Pope Francis to themselves - there is a “mystique” of living together, of mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another, of stepping into this flood tide which, while chaotic, can become a genuine experience of fraternity, a caravan of solidarity, a sacred pilgrimage (EG #87). There is poetry even in his expression of mystique. In every culture where the Gospel has taken root, liturgical poetry and music have blossomed. The People of God is incarnate in the peoples of the Earth, each of which has its own culture … culture embraces the totality of a people’s life (EG #115). We remember Mary’s Magnificat and the poems of St Thomas Aquinas as writings of art, specific to a particular time and place, but as gifts to faith communities over eons. Church communities carry a strong imperative to sing a new song. The writings of Pope Francis speak to our minds but it will be their expression in the arts that will powerfully move our hearts … we constantly seek ways of expressing unchanging truths in a language which brings out their abiding newness (EG #41). Setting to music the messages of Laudato Si’ could be a great imaginative task for poets and musicians from local Church communities - their ecological vocation. Academies of liturgy and music, university and education offices are in a privileged position to lead the task … without losing our joy, our boldness and our hope-filled commitment (EG #109). As Christ’s resurrection permeates the world, even in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life (EG #276). After Vatican II the Church was blessed with many new scripturally based hymns as a richer diet of Scripture re-entered Church liturgy. Publication of Catholic Worship Book II in 2016 provides an authoritative collection of traditional and more recent hymns. Modern poets, such as those associated with the environmental magazine Earth Song, have helped us to live in intimacy with the mystery (EG #287). Many poems and hymns have asked Mary to help us look again to the Earth as a nurturing mother and re-learn the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness (EG #288).

CONCLUSION Experiencing the evangelising message of environmental care in the celebration of the Eucharist can be revolutionary in Christ. Mass experienced this way gives power and hope to the Gospel message, an experience of goodness which always tends to spread (EG #9). Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar at the 2016 Eucharistic Congress in Cebu the Philippines called Mass a revolutionary flag hoisted every day on millions of altars … a clarion call to mission today (Worship January 2017, 16-17).

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INTRODUCTION TO

RESOURCES FOR

Celebrating a Catholic Season of Creation During September

The core pages of this book are a Resource made up of 36 pages of materials to help celebrate September as a Catholic Season of Creation. The Resource is divided into eighteen two-page collections. Each of the two pages offers suggestions for praying the designated Scriptural Readings of a particular Sundays in September with environmental awareness. These core pages cover eighteen Sundays to allow for the changing readings in the different liturgical years A, B and C. The two-page September Resources follow a set schema. Each begins with extracts from the designated Scripture readings of the Catholic Lectionary for a particular Sunday. These Scriptural extracts are to be read with ecological eyes as the starting point to draw out implications concerning creation. They indicate 1/ a grace to remember about God’s outpouring of love in creation and 2/ what to give thanks for. They 3/ offer a basis for intercessions. As background to the Scriptural insights remembering God’s blessings for each Sunday, the Resource has a number of short paragraphs to support liturgical preparations. The paragraphs are reminders about the breath of the Catholic tradition, past and emerging. These two page collections were prepared particularly for the benefit of the priest-celebrant of the Sunday Mass. The role of the priest is key to the flow of the celebration, its tone and message. The collections give a framework for cooperation between the priest and those helping to prepare the Sunday liturgy. First, the flow of the Eucharistic liturgy largely depends on how the celebrant enhances the flow of the Mass as outlined in the Missal. Commentators, readers, composers of the Prayers of the Faithful, choir leader, ushers, servers and those preparing the space all have important roles to play in working with the celebrant to fill out the flow of the Missal. However, these roles are carried through most effectively when the Sunday liturgy is prepared in collaboration with the celebrant. It promotes participation of all the faithful in a structured way. Second, the tone and message of the Eucharistic celebration depends in many ways on the celebrant. According to the Instructions in the Missal itself, the priest has the leeway and even the duty to adapt the initial greetings to the needs of a particular congregation. For example, pro-forma suggested greetings are just that. The celebrant has a strict duty to prepare a homily that applies the designated Sunday Scriptural readings for the spiritual uplift of the congregation leading to suggestions for daily Gospel living. Pope Francis spelt out this duty in great detail in his 2014 Exhortation on Mission #135-159. The aim of the suggestions in this Resource is to introduce ideas and various starting points to help draw out implications for the congregation’s sense of belonging on our common home, Earth. Sunday liturgy planners and the celebrant can weave Resource suggestions into the Mass or homily in any way they like as a way of helping bring to life the environmental encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Si’ (LS). Teachers can adapt these suggestion into weekday liturgies. Flexibility is called for. In creating these two page collections some guidelines were followed.

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Some guidelines for creating a Catholic Season of Creation Resource: – with the world in environmental crisis, a pastoral need arises to systematically help Catholics to address the crisis in prayer, and 1 CREATION Sunday offers the best framework to build on. SEASON OF CREATION – it is called Catholic to avoid confusion with existing Protestant schemas and emerging Orthodox ones. 2 CATHOLIC SEPTEMBER – the Season will run for the four Sundays of September each year. This aligns with Protestant schemas. It also aligns with the 3 Orthodox liturgical calendar which begins 1 September. Some communities finish celebrations on the Feast of St Francis 4 October. CATHOLIC LECTIONARY – so as not to create a break with the present Catholic liturgical cycle, the existing Lectionary is taken as the 4 EXISTING guiding spirit for each Sunday. The designated readings set the tone and grace to be remembered in relation to creation. SUNDAYS YEARS A,B, AND C – while the Season runs for only four Sundays of September in any one calendar year, the liturgical year 5 18 fluctuates over six Sundays. Resource suggestions have been be prepared for six possible sets of Readings for the Years A, B and C thus adding up to 18 Sundays. RACE TO CELEBRATE RATHER THAN THEME – Liturgy remembers God’s action in prayer. To focus on ‘the theme’ of a moral response to a 6 G crisis, environmental or other, could turn the liturgy into an educational session ‘about’ or even become a campaign slogan. The Eucharist itself supplies the primary model: remembrance leading to offering thanks and intercession. OF GRACES - God’s grace is active in both the goodness of creation and in addressing human abuse of creation. An emphasis on the 7 BREADTH ‘nice’ parts of creation is not enough. Remembrance of God’s graces in the totality of creation history leads humanity to feel grief and lament for abuses, to ask for forgiveness and guidance to heal. The God-Earth-Humanity relationship is the touch stone (LS #66).

Format of the Resources Side One • Names the Sunday of the Liturgical Year • Identifies a Grace to celebrate inspired by the Sunday Scripture • Excerpts from the Sunday Prayers and Lectionary • Introduction and Dismissal suggestions • Prayers of the Faithful suggestions inspired by the Readings and Laudato Si’ • Season of Creation as a liturgical period explained • Hymn suggestions connecting the Readings with creation (cf. As One Voice Vol II) • Action: What can I do? • Quotations from Laudato Si’ Side Two • Covenant reflection focusing on God’s loving action in creation as salvation history • Saints and Champions as examples of people spiritually inspired by creation • Mysticism styles that support creation spirituality • Ecological Insight to help in learning from science • Poem to exemplify Australian place and culture • Quotations from Laudato Si’.

1 A set date for Easter might solve this problem. It would also be the opportunity for a more radical 21st century liturgical renewal in which the Lectionary was rewritten (cf Appendix). 2 The style for the Prayers of the Faithful has been amplified for pastoral relevance. The grace of the petition in first named. An action of God is remembered as the basis on which to make intercession, This feature is added from the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours to petition ‘drawn out of praise (#179). The content of the petitions is informed by the Instruction to the Missal and the phrase integral ecology as taught by Pope Francis. There needs to be a pause for silent prayer before … we pray.

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Advent and Lent online Resources in the Spirit of Laudato Siâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

he grace of God is one - no one liturgical season is without prayer that acknowledges God the Creator. However, since the Pope’s encyclical, no liturgical season can ignore the call to ecological conversion in Christ or ignore the ecological vocation of all the baptised. Over millennia believers have created various Catholic Rites. Gospel proclamation interacted with local cultures to form particular incarnations of Christian practice in a process now named as inculturation. Liturgical history tells many stories. Some liturgical practices withered but others blossomed as distinct Christian Rites – Antiochian, Coptic, Orthodox, Ambrosian, Latin and others. Practices that developed in preparation for the great feast of Easter, but also Christmas, grew to become the liturgical seasons of Lent and Advent. They were marked by a spirit of repentance and consciously turning to God. Preparations for both seasons included fasting and giving alms to focus the mind in prayer. It was only logical that the shape of these practices drew heavily on Scriptural stories about conversion and the physical signs of repentance. In the current Lectionary the Scriptural selections nominated for Lent and Advent carry a penitential tone, but importantly, they are set in the boarder context of salvation history, the big story of the outreach of God over cosmic and human time.

dialogue with scientists who love Earth, dialogue with groups searching to spiritually reconnect with Earth and dialogue with other faiths. Mission takes on deeper meaning. Traditions are multiple. Local churches developed particular Advent practices such as making a wreath with four candles lit on successive Sundays. Many composed hymns particular to the season to amplify prayer. Protestant churches have largely retained the liturgical season of Advent and it begins the liturgical year in most western Rites. By way of contrast, the liturgical year for eastern Orthodox Rites begins 1st September but they observe Advent. To help Catholic communities prepare for Advent, Resources based on the Catholic Lectionary are available on the Columban Mission website. The Resources offer suggestions over the three year liturgical cycle to grow the Scriptural tone of waiting, longing and watching. God is to be searched for and can be found in the revealing Earth. God is active in cosmic as well as human history.

ADVENT AND LAUDATO SI’ RESOURCES The liturgical season of Advent was at first seen as a period of fasting for monks leading up to the celebration of Christmas. The practice spread to all the baptised. The weeks that became December were observed throughout the Christian world as a month of prayer, fasting and alms giving. The Council of Tours in 576 wrote about Advent. However, the season grew most fully within the Rites of the western churches. In the middle ages, St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote about the three comings of Christ (‘adventus’ in Latin) - at his birth in Bethlehem, in human hearts and at the end of time. An integral characteristic of Advent is that it carries a tone of time out of time, a time between the first and second comings of Christ, between the first revelation of God in Creation and the final completion of the Last Judgement. It oscillates between dream and reality. With such a rich background the liturgical season of Advent has many overtones that can be brought to prayer, including creation awareness. The Scripture readings designated in the Catholic Lectionary for Advent over a three year cycle form the basis for Columban Mission preparing Advent Resources. The tone set by the Advent Scriptural Readings - waiting, longing and watching - is central. Most religions tell stories of searching for meaning to human existence. This sense of searching is powerfully expressed in the traditions associated with nature religions as they observed the rotation of the seasons in nature, winter and summer solstices and the like. Recognising these natural cycles lead many religions to express in prayer this strong religious bond between Earth cycles and human existence. In the current environmental crisis which Pope Francis wants us to face, the designated Advent Scriptural readings carry major lessons about the call for Christians to be converted and follow the path of dialogue -

YEAR B: Whispers of God - https://www.columban.org.au/media-andpublications/educational-resources/advent-resource-whispers-of-god

YEAR A: Lead Kindly Light - https://www.columban.org.au/media-andpublications/educational-resources/2016-advent-catholic-resource-leadkindly-light-year-a

YEAR C: Pathways: Hope for the Journey - https://www.columban.org. au/media-and-publications/educational-resources/advent-resourcepathways-hope-for-the-journey-(year-c) The style of the suggestions for each Sunday offered in these Advent Resources is similar to the style of the September Creation Season Resources in this book. Each begins with extracts from the designated Scripture readings of the Catholic Lectionary for a particular Sunday. These Scriptural extracts are read with ecological eyes as the starting point to draw out implications concerning creation. They indicate a grace to remember about God’s outpouring of love in creation, what to give thanks for and suggest a basis for petitions. To support the Scriptural insights for each Sunday that remember God reaching out in love, there follows a number of short paragraphs to help with liturgical preparations: • The spirit of Advent within Salvation History, • Ecological insights, • Prayers of the Faithful suggestions, • Stories of searching by holy people, • The mission impulse of Advent, • Quotes from Laudato Si’ • Suggestions for action. LENT AND LAUDATO SI’ ONLINE RESOURCES Lent began as a preparation for celebrating new Life as a follower of Jesus at Easter. It was the natural season of the new life, Spring

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in the northern hemisphere. Conversion, turning to God and baptism into Christ are characteristic of Easter celebrations. Scripture abounds with 40 day conversion stories culminating in the experience of Jesus for 40 days in the wilderness. Prayer, fasting and giving to the poor were prominent in these stories as they focus the heart and mind in the process of preparation for conversion. Lent became a liturgical season formed in this spirit. Since the revival of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) after the Second Vatican Council, the meaning of Lent for Catholic communities has also been renewed. Lent has become even more deeply focused on turning, or returning, to God with all our mind and heart. It is about conversion to Jesus Christ and about baptism into a community of believers, his Body the Church. Sixty years after Vatican II Pope Francis has given new meaning to conversion and baptism into Christ when he writes in his environmental encyclical Laudato Si’: ‘ecological conversion’, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them (LS #217) … We need to experience a conversion, or change of heart (LS #218) … We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements. (LS #3). Lent means evaluating our values and life style in the modern world. This means more than some little self-centred action like giving up chocolate or losing weight. Pope Francis wants us to look at the big picture as he laments humanity’s abuse of Earth: “to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God (LS #8) … defend the environment … These actions cultivate a shared identity, with a story which can be remembered … [they] become intense spiritual experiences (LS #232) … A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle … the practical relativism typical of our age is “even more dangerous than doctrinal relativism” (LS #122). The environmental challenge Pope Francis articulates has led Columban Mission to prepare Lenten Resources for Years A, B and C. These resources are available on the Columban website. The phrase ‘The Grace of …’ introduces the three different Resources for the liturgical Years YEAR A: The Grace of Earth. https://www.columban.org.au/media-and-publications/ educational-resources/the-grace-of-earth-lenten-resource-year-a This Resource explores six Earth life-support systems on which all life depends, including human life. Salvation history embraces the Big Story of 13.7 billion years of creation. YEAR B: The Grace of Forests. https://www.columban.org.au/media-and-publications/ educational-resources/the-grace-of-forests Each Australian forest type – acacia, eucalypt, casuarina, melaleuca, mangrove, rainforest – is unique and a religious symbol as they perform life giving functions in our natural environment. YEAR C: The Grace of Place. https://www.columban.org.au/media-and-publications/ educational-resources/the-grace-of-place-lenten-resource-2017-year-c We know that an awareness of place is more than about survival – wild places, rural places, coastal places, urban places, sacred places, my place – God is present there. The Resources for the six Sundays of Lent each year are guided by the designated Scriptural readings for the Sunday. They particularly focus on the environment itself so that a deeper awareness can nourish our call for ecological conversion from a local Australian perspective. They express ecological conversion under the triple banner of God revealing, God inspiring, God challenging.

APPENDIX

A Proposal for a Season of Creation in the Liturgical Year

This Appendix carries a proposal to officially create a ‘Season of Creation’ within the liturgical cycle of the Catholic Church. The article was first published in the Australasian Catholic Record April 2016 and I am grateful to be allowed to do a reprint. Creating an official Season of Creation is a long term task and one that would equal the major liturgical changes initiated at Vatican II. However, it is not an impossible proposal. That the Vatican II liturgical reform was done by liturgical and scriptural scholars in conjunction with Catholic bishops from around the world offers an example of what is possible, if there is the will. The Church is ever under reform. Creating a ‘Season of Creation’ within the liturgical cycle would be just another step on the Church’s journey through history. It is of note that in many Christian Churches, September has already been designated as a ‘Season of Creation’, or ‘Creation Time’, culminating with the feast of St Francis 4 October. Pope Francis and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch have both named 1 September as Creation Day. This helps show that the importance of addressing the world’s environmental crisis in liturgical prayer is now an evolving trend that is also ecumenical.

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A Proposal for a Season of Creation in the Liturgical Year Charles Rue* Inserting a Season of Creation into the Catholic liturgical year during September is one way to structurally help implement the vision of Pope Francis given in his encyclical Laudato Si’. As a pastoral initiative a new liturgical season would help believers face the twenty-first-century ecological challenge. This article first looks at the liturgical reform initiated by the Second Vatican Council as an example of reform. The second part explores recent initiatives to express the creation dimension of theology in communal worship. In 1993 the ecumenical association, Church and Environment (oeku), proposed a Creation Time running from 1 September to 4 October. In 2004 Norman Habel in Adelaide developed a set of scriptural readings and ecological themes on this timetable. It was adapted by some Protestant communities around the world. Catholic and Orthodox communities wanting to celebrate creation during September have tended to focus on a particular day, often 1 September. Taking a more systematic approach, for the last three years the Columban Mission Institute in Sydney has prepared resources as an ecological reading of the existing lectionary to celebrate a Catholic Season of Creation during September. Creating a new lectionary would be a more radical reform.

Charles Rue was raised in Canowindra, NSW, educated at the local St Edward’s School, and at St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, NSW. A farmer for four years, he was president of the local Young Farmers before joining the Columbans. Ordained in 1968, he was appointed to South Korea. After language school, he worked in parishes. From 1980 he taught liturgy at the Institute for Theology in Seoul after studies at Berkeley. During mission education work in Australia 1984–90 he completed a master’s degree in environmental planning. Again going overseas, he worked as a parish priest in Jamaica, West Indies, 1990–95. Returning to Australia, he headed the Regional Columban History Project and was granted a doctorate for his work. He is presently based at the Columban Mission Institute (CMI), Sydney. He may be reached at charlesrue@columban.org.au, or on phone 0408 466 820.

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Part One: The Pastoral Significance of the Liturgical Reform from Vatican II Pastors know that taking part in Sunday worship is the common way ordinary Catholic communities are led to consciously know and experience God. As the Scriptures are broken open along with the bread, the faith of believers is both confirmed and challenged to grow. Experiencing the year-long rhythm of Sunday liturgical worship is the mainstay of parishioners’ growth in the Christian life—a habit of God meeting humanity. In 1962 Pope John XXIII said, ‘It is no accident that the first schema to be considered was the one dealing with the sacred liturgy’.1 Liturgy that works pastorally in helping open believers to new horizons sets a litmus test for its value.2 Liturgy is event, remembering story more than the objects that surround it. Pastoral liturgy opens worshippers to a Big God, helping them enter more deeply into the historical cultural flow and mystery of life, embracing the spiritual dimension of the human journey without fear, as Pope Francis preached at Easter 2015.3 Johannes Metz wrote of the paschal mystery expressed in Christ as a dangerous memory subverting the ways in which humans might prefer to think of God and to order their ways of living. Worshippers enter into rhythms past and future, historical and eschatological, as they celebrate challenging memories. The church’s successive liturgical seasons evolved gradually. First, the year draws loosely on the rhythms of nature. Nature’s four seasons provide time frames, each with an emotional dimension linked to winter, spring, summer or autumn in Western cultures. Second, onto these frames was grafted the commemoration of historical religious events, initially Jewish faith accounts of the history of salvation4 and then Christian remembrances of the life-deathresurrection of Jesus and sending of his Spirit. There is continuity in the flow from nature’s seasons through to salvation expressed in Christ. Over two millennia the Christian liturgical year cycles of prayer further evolved as local communities localised their commemorations. Varied selections of scriptural readings created worship cycles to stimulate mind and feelings, nourishing and challenging. To capture a spectrum of culturally relevant emotions, prayers of thanksgiving, lament, petition and the like, often chanted, 1. 2. 3. 4.

Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, ed. M. J. O’Connell (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1990), 33. Ernst H. Conradie, ‘Liturgical Reorientation through an Emerging Horizon’ (Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation Conference, Serafino, McLaren Vale, SA, 10–12 March 2015). ‘To enter into the mystery’ means to be able to wonder, to contemplate, to listen to the silence and to hear the tiny whisper amid great silence by which God speaks to us (cf. 1 Kgs 19:12). To enter into the mystery demands that we not be afraid of reality. Israel began this transition from nature to history with its great festivals: spring festival, sacrificing a newborn lamb (Passover); unleavened barley bread (Mazzoth: Exod 12:34, 39); wheat harvest (Shabuoth); wine and fruit harvest (Tabernacles: Lev 23:39-43). Canaanite festivals were given new meanings in Israel. Weekly and yearly cycles were created—Sabbath as a seventh day, of rest (Exod 20:11); and rest for the land in the seventh year (Lev 25:4).

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were added to embellish and give colour to local commemorations of God’s ongoing action. The end result was that systematically over a year Christian communities in diverse cultures created cycles of remembrance. These varied rites gave structure for leaders of worship. Re-creating Liturgical Practice post–Vatican II The liturgical year of the Roman tradition was recast after Vatican II (1962– 65) to better serve the modern pastoral needs of faith communities—joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties. This evolution built on the past. From the nineteenth century scholars had searched the sources. In the twentieth century Pius X led believers to better participate in the Eucharist and Pius XII authorised new Easter rites. The Pian Commission operated 1948–60 and an International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy was held at Assisi in 1956. Annibale Bugnini has comprehensively documented the multitude of people and plans involved in Roman liturgical reform from 1948 to 1975.5 Fr Bugnini was a Vincentian and it is of note that at Vatican II the role of missionary churches helped emphasise the pastoral tone of the liturgical reform—what spoke to their people. The value of localisation, now called ‘inculturation’ in theological language, was recognised. Reforming the Roman Liturgy in the 1960s was a collaborative effort. Bugnini was chief organiser around the mandate of Vatican II but he involved hundreds of experts and pastors. The initial work was assigned to a Preparatory Committee when Vatican II was announced. Under Bugnini the committee of sixty-five members approached liturgical reform with military-like organisation. The basic work was divided into small subcommittees taking up thirteen general areas, and members were experts drawn from pastoral activists and academics from varying nationalities and spiritual traditions. After just fourteen months the committee handed over its proposed liturgical schema to be discussed by the bishops. Their initial vote was 2215 in favour and only 46 against. After minor changes, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was promulgated November 1963. Vision, organisation and competence had combined well. Implementation of the constitution’s reform was given to a group called Concilium. It operated from 1964 to 1969. Not unlike the way multiple subcommittees carried the pre–Vatican II preparation, twelve groups with thirtynine subgroups worked ‘under the flag of mutual trust, fraternal harmony, good will and the shared ideal of reaching unwavering and well-defined goals’, wrote Bugnini.6 Concilium kept episcopal conferences in touch with developments and asked them to present their particular questions in a process of mutual learning. National liturgical commissions, publishers of liturgical journals, and information periodicals such as Notitiae were part of the conversation. Some Protestant Churches were also reorganising their forms of worship, so having 5. 6.

Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy. Ibid., 185.

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their observers at Vatican II was a public way of showing mutual respect and learning. Bugnini identified six pastoral principles essential to the reform. Liturgy has to: (1) be prayer experienced by believers, to immerse themselves in God’s mystery (2) act as the summit and font of church community life (3) embody full, conscious and active participation (4) manifest the church as a sign of communion and be the basis of all its action (5) show substantial unity but not rigid uniformity (6) follow sound tradition but allow for legitimate progress.7 Pastoral relevance demanded that the liturgy be loosed from the encrustations of time so that rites could speak in the spirit and language of modern times and the liturgy could regain its power to communicate and better become the literature and art of the people. The reform exemplified the tone of Vatican II, which called for a new mobilisation of the church as a work of the Spirit, an ongoing process sensitive to every cultural development. Pope John XXIII said, ‘The liturgy must not become a relic in a museum but remain the living prayer of the church’.8 This call grows more relevant in an ecologically aware age. The Liturgical Calendar and the Three-Year Cycle The first major task of the Concilium teams was to reform the liturgical calendar. The liturgical year works with a type of counterpoint: every Sunday acts as the primary day of the Lord while the whole mystery of Christ is recalled during the course of the liturgical year.9 Concilium worked within the traditional liturgical seasons. One significant decision of Concilium was to move the feast of Christ the King to the end of the liturgical year. In that place, however, it not only marked the end to the liturgical year but it helped highlight the eschatological aspect of salvation history—the ongoing and cosmic nature of the human journey in Christ to the end of time. This decision was largely theological but it better linked the three years structurally in the new liturgical cycle. Feast days were rationalised. Marian feast days focused questions because of Mary’s special importance within the life of the whole church and the practices of local churches. Two criteria were identified to test the place of a feast: Does it enhance a close relationship with Christ? Does it help advance the mission of church life? 7. 8. 9.

Cf. ibid., 39–45. Ibid., 44. ‘General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar’, in The Sacramentary (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1983), chap. 1, nos. 1 and 17.

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Special celebrations caused concern. Rogation and Ember days originally marked the natural seasons but had grown pastorally difficult to observe so the Australian bishops all but abolished them.10 A September Season of Creation may be a way to recapture the spirit of this ancient tradition but be pastorally palatable. Creating a new lectionary was integral to forming a new liturgical year.11 Contrasting markedly with the former one-year cycle, Concilium introduced a new three-year liturgical cycle to implement the council’s mandate to nourish communities with a wider range of Scripture,12 a fuller story of the mystery of salvation. Lectionaries from different Rites were consulted. In 1965 it tasked thirty-five biblical scholars to select from the Old and New Testaments according to a set framework. A three-year cycle for the Sundays was chosen primarily so that one of the Synoptic Gospels could be the focus over a year. Continuous reading of Scripture was favoured for the gospel and for the second reading, which was to be taken from the New Testament. The first reading usually drew from the Old Testament but was themed according to the gospel. The psalm often set the tone and grace to be remembered in each celebration. Some argued that the new three-year lectionary cycle be made optional to better work ecumenically. In fact, many Reformed Churches concurred with the change. Catholic leadership decided to make the three-year cycle the standard church practice, not optional. The new liturgical calendar and lectionary was promulgated Pentecost 1969, and the Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship established to oversee further reform. Criticisms The Vatican II liturgical reforms were not perfect. In the selection of Scripture for the Lectionary the voice of women and the earth were often overlooked and even suppressed.13 Seeing Scripture through the eyes of modern movements was a challenge. Mistakes were made in implementation by some liturgical leaders in trying to become relevant: they were working with a limited understanding of liturgical history and of the dynamics of liturgical structure. Good will and pastoral concern were not enough by themselves: church leadership often left ‘creative’ people without guidance, and remained silent or issued insensitive rulings. The reform was not without controversy. The congregation had members who wanted a return to the past, and the liturgical wars began.14 Una Voce 10. 11. 12. 13.

Tom Elich, ‘Ember Days’, Liturgy News 37, no. 4 (December 2007). Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, 406. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 35.1, 51. http://futurechurch.org/women-in-church-leadership/women-and-word/women-in-bible-andlectionary. 14. Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, 257–301.

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promoted the continued use of Latin; some called the 1969 Missal of Paul VI heretical. Bugnini pushed to counter this trend but found himself ‘promoted’ to a foreign diplomatic post as archbishop. The rise to power of Vox Clara led to replacing the proposed 1998 English translation with a ‘clunky’ version.15 Pastoral relevance was often bypassed, forgetting that ‘rites and symbols are to be the entry point to the mystery of the revealed God rather than mere obfuscations and even obstacles’.16 However, attempts at backsliding were paltry compared to the great work Bugnini and his many teams achieved. The new Roman liturgy had been forged in hard work and pain but was a win for the faithful. Bugnini’s detailed account of the Vatican II liturgical reform reads like a novel—with proposals, experiments, preliminary schemas, condemnations, opposition, negotiations, debates in journals and the media, factional fights, scapegoating, advocacy for local interests, successes and failures. The Vatican II liturgical reform stands as a model of what can evolve in the church if there is the unwavering will to carry through on well-defined goals. Part Two: Restructuring the Liturgical Year A twenty-first-century reform of the Vatican II liturgy aims to insert a fourweek-long Season of Creation within the liturgical year during September. It would challenge believers to embrace all creation in their spiritual journey while helping to address pastoral relevance for modern church mission. Catholics in all nations are caught up in an environmental crisis, so celebrating such a season is one way to help believers find God in this crisis. This reform would embrace an expanded new story of a Creator God, a cosmic story of salvation, opening believers both to appreciate the modern insights of the ecological sciences and to better find the voice of earth in the Scriptures. It would help believers give knowing and active witness to an awareness of the thirteen-billion-year unfolding reign of God and mystery of God present in creation.17 The 2015 encyclical letter of Pope Francis Laudato Si’ develops Catholic social teaching on the environment as part of church mission.18 The Pope’s vision is spiritual and goes deeper than ethical demands to present a comprehensive vision of the human journey, which he terms ‘integral ecology’. It forms a package. It has the worlds of science, economics, solidarity in justice and compassion intersect as believers encounter the living Christ in this age. Denis Edwards writes that humanity is part of an evolutionary emergence of God’s love 15. Paul Collins, And Also With You: Is the New English Translation of the Mass a Betrayal of Vatican II? (Manuka, ACT: Catholics for Ministry, 2009). 16. Gerard Moore, ‘Praying the Word: A Response’, Australian Journal of Liturgy 13, no. 3 (2016): 112. 17. Norman Habel, Discerning Wisdom in God’s Creation (Northcote, Vic: Morning Star, 2015), 59–72. 18. Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2015). Henceforth LS.

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where God humbly embraces the unfolding cosmos, suffers with it, leading to a transformation of humanity.19 A September Season of Creation would offer a structured liturgical way to help implement the call of Pope Francis. In 2013 he exhorted pastors to better promote mission by addressing real-life issues in the eucharistic assembly.20 In 2015 he explicitly asked that pastors be prepared from their seminary days to address ecological conversion; and he asked that this be done in a systematic way.21 Pastors would benefit from a framework to nurture Catholic communities in the ecological dimension faith. The Vatican II liturgical reform as outlined in the first part of this article offers a guide on how to proceed with further reform. However, such a further reform will need the will of church leadership to move it forward. Developing Theologies of God as Creator Some promoters of a Season of Creation argue that Christian communities need to better acknowledge the first article of the Creed, God as Creator, and integrate this belief within the history of salvation.22 The current liturgy has many prayers that begin by recalling creation and God as Creator; however, no special season is set aside to contemplate God’s ongoing deeds in creation. New scriptural, theological and environmental insights suggest a deepening theology of creation linked to salvation and redemption. Commentators on Franciscan theology are among those who argue that creation itself is at the very beginning of redemption and is intimately linked to salvation in Christ.23 They focus on humanity’s right relationship to the Creator and all creation as one creature among other creatures. This vein was often neglected under neoThomistic influences. Experiences of God in all creation over millennia have been variously expressed as eco-rituals, eco-spirituality, eco-poetry and ecological science. Denis Edwards writes, ‘we human beings experience grace, the wonder and mystery of God, in the encounter with the world around us … [a] human 19. Denis Edwards, ‘Experience of Word and Spirit in the Natural World’ (Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation Conference, Serafino, McLaren Valley, 10–12 March 2015). He cites the pastoral concerns shown in Karl Rahner’s Theological Investigations. 20. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 2013. It is worth remembering that ‘the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the Eucharistic assembly … surpasses all forms of catechesis’ (137). ‘The preacher also needs to keep his ear to the people and to discover what it is that the faithful need to hear’ (154). 21. In LS, Pope Francis asks for new liturgical habits as well as behavioural ones (209), and hopes for integral environmental education in seminaries and houses of formation (214). 22. Isolde Schonstein and Likas Vischer, eds, Time for God’s Creation: An Appeal to the Churches in Europe (Geneva: European Christian Environmental Network [ECEN], 2006). 23. Cf. St Francis (LS, 10–12), St Bonaventure (LS, 239); Ilia Delio, http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781576592892; Kennan Osborne, 1997, http://www.franciscan publications.com/?page_id=1147.

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experience of the Spirit’.24 Creation, incarnation and resurrection are not unlike an altar tryptic. On God’s initiative, humanity is empowered to transform itself and the rest of creation. In Christ it grows to share in God’s own self and is forever in God (Rom 8:18; Col 1:15; Eph 1:10; Rev 5:13). This trajectory of transformation becomes a new way to see, feel, act, live and ultimately celebrate and pray.25 Ecological insights about cycles of death and new life have led some believers to a deeper appreciation of the Cross. When Robert Daly writes about an ecologically sensitive Eucharistic Prayer he says it must not fixate on the language and imagery of so-called ‘nice creation’ and quotes Gail Ramshaw: God created a world in which from its beginning life contended with death. Such a worldview suggests a theology in which Christ’s death and Resurrection do not deny God’s natural order but rather epitomize and sanctify it. Daly proposes that prayer can be ecologically, socially, psychological and spiritually sensitive when cross and resurrection are a continuum.26 Orthodox theologian John Chryssavgis calls for a new asceticism in Christian living.27 Archbishop Mark Coleridge, speaking at the 2014 Wollongong Liturgical Conference, said that the four constitutions of Vatican II—Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Sacrosanctum Concilium and Gaudium et Spes—should be read as complementary.28 The church has a twenty-first-century ecological vocation in the world to cast the light of faith on a major issue of our times, the environmental crisis.29 Celebrating a Season of Creation could be a source and summit of this vocation.30 John Coleman sees the connection between the church as sacrament of the world, climate change and creation care as a call to a united mission for this age.31 A Season of Creation would open believers to the future with hope, capable of witnessing in an age of increasing pessimism and selfcentred survival. 24. Denis Edwards, Partaking of God: Trinity, Evolution and Ecology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 151. 25. Edwards, ‘Experience of Word and Spirit’. 26. Robert Daly, ‘Ecological Euchology’, Worship 89 (2015): 166. Daly draws on works such as Cynthia Crysdale and Neil Ormerod, Creator God, Evolving World (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2013); Elizabeth Johnson, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); and Edwards, Partaking of God. 27. John Chryssavgis, ‘On Earth as in Heaven’ (The Earth Is the Lord’s: Environmental Theology and Ethics Symposium, St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College, Redfern, NSW, October 2015). 28. Erin Brigham, ed., The Church in the Modern World: Fifty Years after ‘Gaudium et Spes’ (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015). 29. Gaudium et Spes, 10. 30. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10. 31. John A. Coleman, ‘The Church, Climate Change and Creation Care’, in Church in the Modern World, ed. Brigham, 127.

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Every Sunday and the whole liturgical year ranges back and forth from cosmic creation to the Second Coming, but placing the feast day of Christ the King at the end of the year elicits a sense of unfinished reform, a gap yet to be filled. A period of structured worship focused on creation would fit without strain into the relatively ‘dead’ period called Ordinary Time. Theologically it would act as a precursor to celebrating Christ the King, Alpha and Omega, enhancing the eschatological dimension of salvation. Liturgical celebration takes the participant beyond the literal and everyday to connect with a transforming reality as big as God. David Tacey argues that to give any lesser role to religion (and by implication its liturgical expression) turns it into superstition as regards God and materialism as regards the earth.32 Pope Francis’ 2015 Laudato Si’ challenged followers of Christ to love all creation. Ecological conversion is primarily a spiritual experience of love.33 Nature is the first book of revelation so the Pope asks for respectful dialogue with scientists and campaigners who embrace creation in their local place, knowing that humans are meant to belong on earth as a common home. Pope Francis puts justice and compassion for the poor centre stage as he challenges perceived opposition between care for humanity and care for the environment, often suggested by economists and their political acolytes. The poor are the first to suffer from environmental pollution and the impact of climate change. Many environmental refugees are the victims of First World greed. Love of earth can free people from the tyranny of economics and from a lifestyle that demands consuming more and more. However, the theological and ethical aspects of the Pope’s ‘integral ecology’ teaching have been contested. Theologically, many downplay the place of the physical world itself as the locus for believers’ experiences of divine presence. They fail to embrace the saving actions of a triune God within the history of cosmic expansion and evolution as explained by science. It is sobering to recall that over two millennia most Christian heresies have sprung from a denial of God’s presence in the material world, leading often to flight from this world and even to hate for the physical (the body as evil).34 Ethically, the policies of many First World governments and international banking systems deny responsibility towards the suffering South. The Pope’s 2014 mission exhortation asks pastors to proclaim a different message—one that carries ‘the smell of the sheep’. Historical Development and Models of a Liturgical Season of Creation In 1989, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Dimitrios I suggested that all churches observe 1 September as ‘the day of the protection of the natural 32. David Tacey, Metaphor God: Beyond Literal Belief (Mulgrave, Vic: Garratt, 2015). 33. James Martin, ‘Laudato Si’ Has Put Spirituality into Debate on the Environment’, America, 19 June 2015. 34. Cf. Richard Hogan, The Theology of the Body in John Paul II: What It Means, Why It Matters (Frederick, MD: Word Among Us, 2006), 182.

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environment with prayers and supplications for all creation’. He went on to write that the environment must: be protected in the Last Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ and offered to the Father as an eternal Eucharistic anaphora and offering. Creation groans and is in travail (Rm 8:22) caused in our day by extreme rationalism and self-centeredness … encouraged by the prevailing philosophy of a consumer society … In view of this situation the Church of Christ cannot remain unmoved. Further recognition of the environmental crisis came when Pope John Paul II in his 1990 New Year message wrote that the natural world has its own integrity, which humans must respect.35 He nominated Francis of Assisi as the patron saint of the environment. As a follow-through in Australia in 1991–92, Caritas Australia and the Australian Catholic Social Justice Commission (ACSJC) produced resources with an ecological focus. Following teachings about ‘ecological conversion’, in 2002–03 the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference set up Catholic Earthcare Australia (CEA). Catholic education offices and religious orders began promoting eco-theology and eco-spirituality. Around the world many Catholic churches took tentative steps towards celebrating creation.36 However, Protestant Churches in central Europe took the lead in the 1990s to work on new liturgical expressions.37 Many English-speaking ecumenical groups developed eco-resources specifically for Sunday worship.38 The European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) in 2006 stated:

35. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jpii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html. Cf. the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Pope’s joint statement at the 2002 Adriatic Sea Ecological Symposium. LS refers often to the Ecumenical Patriarch. 36. In 1999 the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Belgium created a Commission on Care for Creation and in 2000 suggested three years of annual themes and a Creation Sunday during September, but without changes to the Lectionary. In 2003 the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines published a statement introducing Creation Day/Time. 37. Schonstein and Vischer, eds, Time for God’s Creation. The first European Ecumenical Assembly, in Basel, 1989, suggested a week on creation similar to Unity Week. The ecumenical association, Church and Environment (oeku), was founded in Switzerland in 1986, and in 1993 it proposed an annual Creation Time, from 1 September to 4 October. In 1998 the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) was founded. 38. See Christian Ecology Link, UK, http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/harvest.htm; Churches Together, UK and Ireland, https://ctbi.org.uk/creation-time-2014-god-whose-farm-is-allcreation/; https://ctbi.org.uk/?s=creation+time; Operation Noah, UK, http://operationnoah. org/resources/sermon-notes-creation-time-climate-change-purposes-god/; US resources (2006), http://www.webofcreation.org/SeasonofCreation/liturgies.html and http://www. letallcreationpraise.org/season-of-creation; resources from Southern Africa, http://www.neccsa.org.za/Season%20of%20creation.htm.

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We urge Churches to designate the period from September 1 to the second Sunday in October as an opportunity to reflect together on God the creator and on the gift of life … a time to renew our sense of dependence on the Creator, the awareness that we are creatures among creatures, called to serve and care for God’s creation, a time of praise, of repentance and renewal. A seminal model for liturgical celebration of a Season of Creation was developed by Australian Lutheran pastor and Scripture scholar, Norman Habel, informed by an Adelaide-based ecumenical Earth Bible initiative. The model had worldwide influence after its 2004–06 schema and special lectionary were published. It covers the four Sundays of September as a Season of Creation, concluding with the feast of St Francis, 4 October.39 The schema has the same format as the Catholic three-year ABC gospel cycle.40 To grow its theological focus, the scriptural selections over three years focused successively on Spirit, Wisdom and Word. The four Sundays in each year were theologically themed to successively address creation, alienation, passion and new creation. To ground these beliefs within reality, images from the domains of the natural world were chosen, such as trees and water, ocean and air systems. Communities celebrated all creation reconciled in Christ—wonder and wounds. The Adelaide model has many positive aspects: it is systematic, aims to engage the Bible in a new key, covers the central Christian dogmas, directly addresses the ecological crisis, shows sensitivity to the local Australian physical and cultural context by way of examples, and honours the Creator. However, the model causes some misgivings. First, searching to find the voice of nature in the Scriptures may be pushing the texts too far in a quest for direct teaching. Second, its focus on particular nature issues each Sunday could lead to an overemphasis on themes of ethics and moral responsibility. While this emphasis may help in preaching, appeal to the ecologically minded, and promote action, the tone given may ultimately detract from seeking an experience of God as Creator and grow weak on creation theology. A focus on ‘themes’ in liturgy often has social justice roots. An unofficial ethically orientated liturgical year has emerged recently as Sundays have 39. http://seasonofcreation.com/calendar/: USA-Canada churches, Nashville consultation; http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php; Norman C. Habel, David Rhoads and H. Paul Santmire, eds, The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011). 40. Year A: forests, John 3:1-16 (born of the spirit); land, Matt 12:38-40 (sign of Jonah); rivers, Matt 28:1-10 (Jesus is risen, the women tell); wilderness, Matt 3:13–4:2 (Jesus’ baptism and wilderness experience); Year B: earth, John 1:1-14 (prologue); humanity, Mark 10:41-45 (leader serves); sky, Mark 15:33-39 (Jesus’ death, and sky darkens); mountains, Mark 16:14-18 (go to the nations); Year C: oceans, Luke 5:1-11 (call disciples); fauna, Luke 12:22-31 (providence); storms, Luke 8:22-25 (calming of a storm); cosmos, John 6:41-51 (living bread from heaven).

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variously been designated for refugees, the homeless, and the like. Such an emphasis on ethics and morals could be a distortion of church mission and its liturgy even in an ecological age.41 Further pressure for an ethical focus comes from the secular world nominating ‘care for the earth’–type days.42 Even the 2015 Catholic initiative nominating April as ‘Care 4 Creation Month’ is in this vein. It may prove a mistake—creation care becoming just another fringe effort isolated from the mainstream liturgical life of faith communities.43 A cartoon gives a warning: The Little King asks, ‘What is this earth day?’ Rodney replies, ‘You know, sire: the day we all take to honour mother earth by planting a tree or something’. The Little King replies, ‘Kind of like an abusive partner sending flowers once a year’. At a pastoral level, constant use of the word ‘theme’ in liturgy poses the ever present danger of setting a mistaken tone. It has an educational ring or even that of a campaign slogan. Rather than ‘about’ creation, a new liturgical season would be better seen as a time ‘for’ creation—celebration, not education. First remembering a ‘grace’ and then giving thanks is a better liturgical approach—the style of Eucharistic Prayers themselves. Specific moral imperatives would follow, but not lead. Many believers argue that the main reason for a call to celebrate a liturgical Season of Creation is that the earth is in ecological crisis.44 However, Pope Francis issues a warning against a narrow focus. What he terms ‘integral ecology’ focuses first on spirituality and the human journey of relating to God present in all creation. Only then does integral ecology flow through to confront specific issues. Recognising the problem, European churches held consultations on creation theology and spirituality.45 Only one attempt by has been made by a Catholic agency in Australia to develop a Catholic Creation Season resource.46 However, that tentative attempt 41. Charles Rue, Catholics and Nature, Catholic Social Justice Series no. 57 (Alexandria, NSW: Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, 2006). After the first social justice encyclical of Leo XIII, in 1891, the Catholic Communion in particular increased its focus on human concerns but the natural world was often ignored or just regarded as a given. 42. These include: Earth Day, 21 March (launched in 1970 for the spring equinox); Environment Day, 5 June (introduced in 1972 by the UN). Churches in South Africa nominated almost twenty such days. The Canadian United Church provides another array; see http://www.unitedchurch.ca/planning/seasons. 43. http://catholicearthcare.org.au/2015/04/care-4-creation-month/. 44. Climate change is the very public face of this crisis, leading to a complexity of problems to do with biodiversity, resource limitations, pollution, health, and the like. Humans have chosen to experiment with the earth as if it were in a laboratory. http://www.columban.org.au/ assets/files/jpic/LTSS%202013%20version.pdf. 45. Schonstein and Vischer, eds, Time for God’s Creation: A warning was issued at Graz, Germany, in 1997: commitment to preservation of the creation is not an issue among many others, but an essential dimension of church life. Many churches strained to express natural world themes in scriptural language. See also Lukas Vischer, ed., ‘Spirituality, Creation and the Ecology of the Eucharist’, consultation convened by ECEN, April 2006, Geneva, http://www.lukasvischer. unibe.ch/pdf/2007_spiritualitycreation_ecology_eucharist.pdf. 46. http://www.columban.org.au/resources/a-catholic-season-of-creation-sundays-of-september.

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used the readings from the Vatican II Lectionary. A more radical approach could adopt the liturgical reform of Vatican II, which opted for a new three-year cycle with a new lectionary. Once the liturgical framework for a four-week-long September Season of Creation has been accepted and included in the liturgical year, the Lectionary for the whole liturgical year would need to be rewritten. The redesign will pose difficulties: selecting readings for the new Season of Creation, reallocating some readings, and filling blanks left for some Sundays. Gaining consensus for reform in the Roman Rite, where uniformity is seen as a strong value, will need the reminder of the Pope that care for ‘earth as our common home crosses’ all borders. Some may even ask, why bother? The modern cultural trend towards individualism can be sceptical of a structural answer to anything. Will enough churchgoers even be interested? An Opportunity to Address Related Issues The proposal for a twenty-first-century renewal of Catholic liturgy by including a Season of Creation within a revised liturgical year together with a new lectionary gives the opportunity to help address related church challenges. To name five: giving better voice to women in the church; reinvigorating dialogue with the world of science; deepening dialogue ecumenically and with other faiths; giving scope for greater church ‘inculturation’; correcting ‘clunky’ liturgical language. First, the feminist movement’s expanded definitions of humanity must be taken seriously. Neglect of women by the church has led to alienation. In 1980 Carolyn Merchant paralleled the failure to recognise woman in society and its failure to acknowledge the natural world.47 It is of note that in the selection of Scripture for the Vatican II Lectionary often the prophetic voice of both women and the earth was overlooked and even suppressed.48 Second, one way to facilitate dialogue with ecological scientists will be to learn from the feminist hermeneutic of suspicion to recall the hidden voice of the earth in the Bible.49 One example is to hear the voice of earth in the great debate between God as Creator and Job (chaps 38–42). It tells of human arrogance, and 47. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 1980). 48. There is no Sunday reading about Deborah, a mother of Israel, and her song (Judg 5:1-31) and even the Magnificat is not proclaimed on a Sunday (Luke 1:46-56). Verses 15-19 about Huldah the prophetess are omitted from the lectionary passage, 2 Kgs 22:8-13; 23:1-3. Omitted are stories of nurturing women in the Scriptures as teachers, prophets and midwives. Shiphrah and Puah defied Pharaoh’s law (Exod 1:8-22). Esther bravely pleaded to save her people from annihilation (Esth 4:16). Judith was another heroine (Jdt 8:2-8). None of these passages are in the Sunday Lectionary. In the continuous reading from Romans, Phoebe as deaconess is omitted. During the Sundays of the Easter season, the sending of Mary Magdalene as a messenger to the disciples is left out (John 20:17). http://futurechurch.org/women-in-churchleadership/women-and-word/women-in-bible-and-lectionary. 49. http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/theology/ctsc/projects/earthbible/.

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God is not happy. Christians can learn from the empirical method of scientists in observing natural systems and cosmic cycles just how earth embraces and nurtures. A Creation Season would coincide with many secular festivals. Third, ecology already provides a common language in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. In Australia, the National Council of Churches (NCC) promotes ecumenical eco-mission in each state, and interfaith groups, such as the Faith and Ecology Network (FEN), focus on ecology.50 Internationally many ecofaith groups work out of universities such as Yale.51 Fourth, ‘inculturation’ means local churches celebrate the Roman Rite with their own creativity. The Adelaide model has an Australian flavour but Canadian and US churches have adapted it. Hemisphere differences matter. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway in 2003 identified midsummer as the prime environmental time in the Arctic. Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ recognised the writings of local churches so they can feel encouraged to select eco-sensitive readings from local literature to amplify a revised universal calendar. Fifth, the English translation of the Roman Rite approved in Australia is anti-pastoral, both hard to proclaim and hard to listen to. A twenty-first-century revision of the liturgy would give the chance to correct a pastoral mistake. Bugnini’s scriptural team wrote that, to be the true voice of the church, translations had to respect the content of the message, and be accurate but agreeable to the hearer. Conclusion Developing a four-week-long Season of Creation would better serve Christian communities spiritually and pastorally to find God. It would structurally recognise the magnitude of the ecological crisis while preparing believers to give better witness and service to all creation. Church communities would be in a better position to dialogue with people of other churches and faiths, scientists and people of good will, about earth as our common home, leading to new commitments as congregations and individuals. The work done by liturgists in consultation with bishops of the world to create and implement the Vatican II Catholic liturgical reform is a powerful sign of hope. The reform showed vision and pastoral sensitivity as it marshalled the competence of thousands of scholars. It showed that major cooperative work between liturgists, Scripture scholars and bishops is possible if there is the will. The end result was the opportunity for believers in the parishes to bathe more fully in the riches of the Christian tradition and add their local church colour. The Vatican II liturgical reform is a powerful story of the possible and gives hope for further reform in creating a liturgical Season of Creation. 50. http://www.faithecology.net.au/. 51. http://fore.yale.edu/.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Charles Rue was raised in Canowindra, NSW, educated at the local St Edward’s School, and at St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill, NSW. A farmer for four years, he was president of the local Young Farmers before joining the Columbans. Ordained in 1968, he was appointed to South Korea. After language school, he worked in parishes. From 1980 he taught liturgy at the Institute for Theology in Seoul after liturgical studies at Berkeley. During mission education work in Australia 1984–90 he completed a master’s degree in environmental planning. Again going overseas, he worked as a parish priest in Jamaica, West Indies, 1990–95. Returning to Australia, he headed the Regional Columban History Project and was granted a doctorate for his work. He is presently based at the Columban Mission Institute (CMI), Sydney. He may be reached at charlesrue@columban.org.au, or on phone 0408 466 820.

CLIMATE CHANGE RESOURCE:

Let the Son Shine: An Australian Catholic Response to Climate Change by Charles Rue, 2013. https://www.columban.org.au/assets/files/jpic/LTSS%202013%20version.pdf

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A P rayer for our Earth All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures. You embrace with your tenderness all that exists. Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one. (Extract from the environmental encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Si’)

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