"We are losing our attitude of wonder, of contemplation, of listening to creation and thus we no longer manage to interpret within it what Benedict XVI calls 'the rhythm of the love-story between God and man.'"
+ Pope Francis
Sandy
Photo: South-facing shores of Rhode Island after Sandy. With permission of RI DOT |
Four days before the storm made landfall, meteorologists seemed to have run out of adjectives and words of warning to describe what was happening and what was about to come. After Sandy punched her way into and across the mid Atlantic—then spending days pin-wheeling in a thousand-mile rotation of cloud and rain—folks on the Weather Channel could only repeat the same inadequate words to describe the unspeakable.
As I write, the news form New Jersey,
The question being bandied about now, of course—as it was even before the storm made landfall—is if
I’ve noted before that weather is not climate, so to say that
And so a few thoughts:
From a visceral vantage—and as foolish as this will sound—as I watched images of a flooded
My more rational side was startled by how the flood maps of post-Sandy
That all said, voices have already been heard telling us that man must retreat from the shores. I will not say they do not have a point. In places in
To have such a storm hit the week before a much-debated presidential election has many wondering about
The most important thing to say now—especially on this Feast of All Saints—is that we must pray for and give to those in need. Per
In the days and years to come, Catholics who teach ecological truths would do well to reflect on and keep close the words that
If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Of these words, I think these especially must be the motto of Catholic ecologists, especially when faced with growing, deadly empirical evidence of climate change: love does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
May we, too, rejoice not in the sufferings of others because it proves our theories, but in the truth that will help us all understand and adapt to what is changing around us. Indeed, we must rejoice in seeking truth together about new ways to build our communities, to work, and to consume so that, in protecting the globe, those not yet born may not have to struggle to describe increasingly hostile weather.