“Our human flourishing depends on recognising both the high value of each human being and the importance of our relationship to one another and to the environment of which we are part,” writes ANDY HAMILTON SJ.
International Mother Earth Day has only recently been taken up by the United Nations. Its theme – the high value of the natural world – however, has always been central in prayer and in poetry. The scriptures and poems are full of images of mountains, rivers and forest and the wonder of nature. From the nineteenth century onwards many poets have lamented the ugliness of the industrial world and the destruction of nature. This concern became more focused after the Second World War in recognition particularly of the effect of pesticides on birds and animal life in farming.
In the Catholic tradition which we inherit at Jesuit Social Services concern for the natural world became central when Pope Francis published Laudato Si’. He recognised the threat both to the natural world and to the poor from global warming. He saw respect for our environment and the commitment to lower emissions are more than good works. Our human flourishing depends on recognising both the high value of each human being and the importance of our relationship to one another and to the environment of which we are part. Our economic, governmental and cultural systems encourage or damage human flourishing. In Jesuit Social Services we can see that in the way the disadvantage that affects so many of the young people with whom we work. They lack both access to education, employment and medical care and are exposed to heat and cold and to a treeless environment. Environmental vandalism and the gross inequality of the poor run together. Both reflect relationships poisoned by greed and apathy.
We see today, too, how respect for human beings and the environment are affected by war. Houses are destroyed, electricity connections, sewage and water pipes are broken, and people are killed, maimed, made homeless and live on the edge of starvation. War also draws attention away from the climate crisis as nations put priority on building arms, diverting money from green energy production to coal and oil with its effect on emissions, and contributing to inequality with its effects on the natural world. The cry of the earth becomes louder and louder.
Mother Earth Day is not a fashionable day. Neither, of course, are days to do with poverty and grief. Yet together they remind us of our shared humanity with its limitations as well as its ambitions.
