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Text: Fr Dominic Robinson SJ at Mass for Season of Creation


Fr Dominic at SDEN Season of Creation Mass, Image: ICN/JS

Fr Dominic at SDEN Season of Creation Mass, Image: ICN/JS

Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, Parish Priest and Chair of Westminster Justice and Peace Commission gave the following homily at Farm, Street Church, Mayfair, on Saturday, during the first-ever Mass for the Southern Dioceses Environment Network (SDEN) marking the start of the Season of Creation which runs from now until the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.

What's the point of being a Christian? What do we have to offer the world? Why bother? Many regard Christianity as something odd to so many around us - and so it makes it very difficult to explain why we still go to church, believe in something we can't explain away, adhere to outdated cultures and customs and rules - and, even worse, we are treated with suspicion and hostility, accused sometimes rightly of hypocrisy and using the cover of what at least for a minority is still respectability to brainwash, abuse, sow bad seeds rather than good.

Amid all this the Gospel we're given again this weekend throws down the gauntlet and challenges us to be better disciples in seemingly unrealistic and unrealisable ways. Turning our back on family and following by taking up the cross, embracing the suffering of ridicule and hardship, and when it feels like it's time to pack up to keep going come what may. And the Church is asked to do this in every generation. The context will be different of course. The threat of martyrdom amid the persecution of the post-Reformation period is part of our history. The battle to take our place as Catholics and as Christians in our modern society. And now the context is different again as we move into what Pope Francis heralded as not an era of change but a change of era back in 2013.

To my mind the Holy Father was right and his subsequent call to action is, alongside many others globally, prophetic and daringly so. As Christians and as Catholics especially inspired by the social doctrine of the Church, which shapes everything we do, we are called to build up the Kingdom in ways which respond to the radical needs of our own time. At the very heart of this, in all we do as Christians and as citizens, is the call to respond urgently and radically to address the ways we have abused our call to be stewards of our God-given creation. The reality of climate change and the throwaway culture which has elevated humanity to a God-like status needs to be challenged and practical steps taken to rework the balance of our lives in keeping with an attitude which restores a sense of humility and of stewardship in the face of God and his gift bestowed on us creatures.

Francis challenges us, to rethink what our faith is calling us to amid this new crisis: "The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate [this]'. That's exactly why the Churches are celebrating this season of Creation, between the Day of Prayer for Creation on the first day of autumn September 1st and the Feast of the great saint of Creation Francis of Assisi on October 4th. To bring us back to the specific call to discipleship today, to call us to refocus on who we are as stewards of God's gifts, to raise our voices as Christians and to empower us to propose and contribute to solutions.

The dioceses of England and Wales, religious orders, parishes, schools, chaplaincies, activists, property staff, finance, administrators, the People of God are all engaged in vital practical projects to do all we can, alongside civil society, to combat the effects of the environmental crisis. The practicalities may differ - decarbonisation by this or that date, divestment from fossil fuels, green energy, brown energy, Church property, parishioners and clergy's energy consumption, transport - but the important thing is as Church, together with all the Churches and faith groups and with civil society, we are fully united on this. It is a lynchpin of the call to be a disciple today. The call to act gives us a practical, concrete mandate today. And it will cost.

I can still hear some perhaps asking, so what has this to do with faith? What has it to do with me, with us? One of the key messages of Laudato Si' for me is how it relates to Francis' succeeding document, Fratelli Tutti, All Brothers and Sisters. It is part of a seamless garment of teaching. In caring for the planet we are caring for each other, each one of us on this earth united as we are made in the image and likeness of God. And the less we care for our planet the more we contribute to what is becoming the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor, those who are privileged and those who are left behind on the margins of the city, on the side of the road. The impending crisis of cost of living is being tackled by the Church through the increased number of food banks and homeless services but that is just sticking plaster. As Church we need to respond to the call of the Gospel to do a radical rethink on how we occupy this planet, how we share resources equitably, how we tread humbly and act justly, and we must say this loud and clear.

So may all our endeavours be always rooted in the call to be truer disciples of him. May we take up that cross again today and together respond to that call to be good and faithful stewards who do not count the cost of constant conversion of heart in his name.

For more information on the Southern Dioceses Environment Network (SDEN) see: https://westminsterjusticeandpeace.org/season-of-creation-1st-september-4th-october/

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