I tried for a final time to excite the "Religion & Ecology" class about Pope Francis' Laudato Si' today, having them try to reconstruct what it identifies as problems, causes, solutions, and what religion adds. We did pretty well on the first three, but blanks were drawn on the fourth, though they granted that if stories like Cain and Abel worked for you, you should use them. More power to Francis for that - Laudato Si' is addressed to all people, not just Catholics, after all. But has religion nothing to contribute (and is its contribution only instrumental in addressing problems fully articulable in secular terms)? Before springing on them the challenging ideas that we are only bound to Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the rest* through a common Father, and (relatedly) that without a Creator everything is an ultimately valueless accident, we went through this lovely crystallization of the encyclical's way of understanding problems, causes and religious solutions:
§237. 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. Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, the “first day” of the
new creation, whose first fruits are the Lord’s risen humanity, the
pledge of the final transfiguration of all created reality. It also
proclaims “man’s eternal rest in God”.[168]
In this way, Christian spirituality incorporates the value of
relaxation and festivity. We tend to demean contemplative rest as
something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the
very thing which is most important about work: its meaning. We are
called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity,
which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way
of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human
action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered
greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the
detriment of all else. The law of weekly rest forbade work on the
seventh day, “so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son
of your maidservant, and the stranger, may be refreshed” (Ex 23:12).
Rest opens our eyes to the larger picture and gives us renewed
sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centred on
the Eucharist, sheds it light on the whole week, and motivates us to
greater concern for nature and the poor.
The idea of the Sabbath, broader and older than that of the Eucharist, is so rich! As in most every section of Laudato Si' there's so much to like here, Catholic, Catholic-inspired and just, well, wise. Does it need the patriarchal foundation of the transcendent Father Creator?
*Not all the rest. Pope Francis doesn't include the whole Canticle of Francis of Assisi from which he takes the name for his encyclical. In §87, we encounter Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water and Brother Fire, but not Sister Mother Earth or Sister Death!
