During this 800th anniversary year of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity Sister Kathleen Murphy begins a new series of posts on Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intentions while focusing on the jubilee year’s theme Pilgrims of Hope.
If you make a return to your childhood, you may stumble across memories of playing with blocks. What shape was most functional in your architectural triumphs? It is challenging to build with triangular or curved blocks. The tried and true sturdy rectangular and square faces were probably your go-to choices. So, this year our considerations will likewise be founded on a four-sided approach. We anticipate our own Chapter which shares the theme Pilgrims of Hope with the Jubilee Year. This will also be the year in which we celebrate the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ reception of the stigmata. Finally, we will bring Pope Francis’ monthly intentions into our considerations.
So, hope will be central to the coming months. The theme Pilgrims of Hope carries a hint of things yet to come in that a pilgrim is traveling toward a destination at which she has not yet arrived. But in a Letter From Taize, we find the following thought:
Even if by definition hope refers to the future, for the Bible it is rooted in the present, in God’s today. In the Letter 2003, Brother Roger reminds us that “[The source of hope] is in God, a God who simply loves us and can do nothing else, a God who never stops seeking us.”
This is also the God whom St. Francis encountered in a uniquely powerful way when he received the stigmata. This was not a distant God awaiting us in the vistas of the future, but a God even painfully present. This God imprints the signs of a Suffering Son, a suffering servant in the flesh of those closest to Him. This God comes to Francis in his own time and place. God also longs to come to us in our time and place. In this we place our hope. Toward this we journey as spiritual pilgrims.
This month finds Pope Francis asking us to pray in particular that each one of us will hear and take to heart the cry of the Earth and of victims of natural disasters and climactic change, and that all will undertake to personally care for the world in which we live.
The Holy Father’s concern for the care of creation is not new. His encyclical letter Laudato Sí is now 8 years old and has been followed by last year’s publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum as a sequel of sorts to the encyclical. In this document, Pope Francis lends a particularly human approach to care of creation. He writes, This is a global issue and one intimately related to the dignity of human life. Our care for one another and our care of the earth are intimately bound together.
What does such care look like as seen through the lens of ecology? Pope Francis writes. Our God-given role is not to dominate the Earth, but to “till and keep” it: to make wise use of its resources, while preserving its health for all creatures and for future generations, since all of us share (and none of us owns) this planet. In these clear words we see that our actions in care of creation also serve in caring for others, especially those who will inherit our home.
In practical terms, it is easy to slip into discouragement when we see our small communal and individual efforts as ineffectual in comparison to the global aspects of this issue. Yet, Pope Francis can help us with some very practical thoughts. He reminds us, We can support a healthier society and a healthier Earth. We can avoid the use of plastic and paper, reduce water consumption, separate refuse, cook only what can reasonably be consumed, show care for other living beings, use public transport or carpooling, plant trees, turn off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices. All of these reflect a generous and worthy creativity that brings out the best in human beings.
Beyond these everyday practices, we can open ourselves to the request in this intention asking us to hear the cry of those who are victims of natural disasters. Let us be prayerfully aware of such suffering people and not only here in our own country scarred by wild fires, earthquakes, floods droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes, but also let us look to the world scene where so many others suffer in the same ways as well as those who have other sources of danger and harm as well. These are the ones bearing today’s marks of the stigmata. Our prayers and solidarity can give them and us reasons to hope.
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