Rome PRSC Eco-Spirituality

April 2013

ICWGIntegrity of Creation

Working Group

JPICJustice, Peace and

Integrity of Creation Commission

USG/UISGUnion of Superiors

GeneralInternational Union of

Superiors General

Purpose StatementThe purpose of the Integrity of

Creation Working Group is to increase awareness, provide informed reflections and suggest actions concerning the environment.

Within the networking possibilities of the JPIC Promoters in Rome, the members are able to provide formation resources, encourage religious congregations to be proclaimers of an ecological dimension to our faith, share contributions, and publicize initiatives that religious congregations are continuing to make for the care of creation.

Integrity of Creation SurveyNovember 2008http://ecoreligious.wikispaces.com

The Earth Communityhttp://jpicformation.wikispaces.com/ENIntegrity_of_Creation

Within the networking possibilities of the JPIC Promoters in Rome, the members are able to provide formation resources, encourage religious congregations to be proclaimers of an ecological dimension to our faith, share contributions, and publicize initiatives that religious congregations are continuing to make for the care of creation.

JP II ‘Eco-conversion’

‘You have only to ask the cattle, for them to instruct you,and the birds of the sky, for them to inform you.The creeping things of the earth will give you lessons,and the fish of the sea provide you with an explanation:There is not one such creature but will knowthat the hand of God has arranged things like this!’

Job 12: 7-9 

Six amazing facts about creation….Earth is not the centre of

the universeGod creates in an

evolutionary and emergent way

Man evolved like the restWe are genetically related

to every other creature on the earth

Creation is not completeChange is central to

creation

1. Eco-justice?

2. God is infinitely compassionate

‘……No sparrow falls to the ground without your heavenly Father knowing it’

(Mt 10:29)

3. God from whom all creation comes and in whom all creation is reconciled

‘in him were createdall things in heaven and on earth;everything visible and everything invisible,….all things were created through him and for him.Before anything was created, he existed,and he holds all things in unity…..he was the first to be born from the dead….because God wanted all perfectionto be found in himand all things to be reconciled through him and for him,all things in heaven and all things on earth.’ Colossians 1: 15-20

4. ‘God, the Creator and Giver of all good gifts.’ (Sp.Exx 316).

‘Before the world was madewe were chosen to live in love in God’s presenceby praising, reverencing and serving himin and through his creation…..’ (Sp.Exx 23)

The current ecological crisis is not fundamentally economic, or

political, it is spiritual – a matter of right relationships.‘In all our

deliberations we must be mindful of the impact of our decisions on the seven generations to follow ours’

(The Great Law of the Six Nations Leagues of the Iroquois)

5. Inter-generational justice

Frederick Frank

Pope Francis – Inaugural Mass, 19th March 2013

‘Let us be custodians of Creation, of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another, of the environment; let us not allow the signs of destruction and death to be part of the journey of our world. Caring, protecting demands goodness and calls for a certain tenderness.’

Our Creator God who is radically compassionate towards all things