Seasons of Creation 2021: Second Week. Comboni missionaries’ experience in Rome

SEE

Comboni missionaries’ experience: Laudato si’ Garden – MCCJ Curia, Rome. A sensory and spiritual experience to learn from Creation and the Gospel.

The Comboni community of the Curia, on the occasion of the Laudato si' Week 2020, accepted the proposal of the General Secretariat of the Mission to create an educational path on the care of the common home.

A working group was formed, involving brothers from the three communities in Via Lilio in a process of discernment on the type of path to be offered and the style of the proposal. This is how the 'Laudato sì' Garden has being created, a highly articulated interactive path that guides users through a sensory experience to facilitate a reconnection with Creation. Then there is the informative and educational dimension on the main themes and ideas dealt with by the encyclical Laudato si', always in close contact with the reality presented in the Park and with elements of augmented reality, through a dedicated App that can be downloaded onto Smartphones [Click here].

In addition, the route offers a missionary perspective and the possibility of a guided spiritual experience, as well as giving a mandate to the commitment to integral ecology through actions at both a personal and collective level.

Finally, the park also offers the possibility of an educational trail for children, through games and other activities tailored to their needs. So far, due to restrictions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, only a few sporadic visits to Laudato si' Garden have taken place. However, the community is confident that in the new pastoral year it will be able to implement a programme of visits and events to raise local awareness and provide effective missionary animation.

DISCERN

Insights for a biblical-ecological reflection on the readings of Sunday 12 September

OIKOLOGIE: WISDOM FROM OUR HOME PLANET

Proverbs 1: 20-33; Psalm 19: 1.3-15; James 3: 1-12; Marc 8: 27-38

=    Oikos’ is also the root word for ‘ecology’, the science of relationships of organisms (including us) to each other and their surroundings.

=    In Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman, present at and involved in creation (8:22-31). Theologians differ as to whether Wisdom is simply a literary device, or represents the Holy Spirit, or possibly even the pre-incarnate Christ.

=    Whichever view we take, Wisdom is clearly from God, and accessed both through study of nature / God’s world (eg. 1 Kings 4:29-33) and of scripture / God’s word. Psalm 19 beautifully outlines God’s ‘two books’: nature (vs.1-6) and scripture (vs.7-11). How can we ensure we gain wisdom by studying both of these means of God’s self-revelation?

=    How do Proverbs 1:26-30, about how disaster (often ecological) will overtake those who ignore God’s Wisdom, speak to our situation today? Are there examples in your context?

=    In James 3:7-12 vivid imagery contrasts the untameable human tongue with other aspects of nature. Is there a sense in which humanity’s increasing separation from nature leads to us speaking and behaving in more unnatural, and harmful, ways?

=    In Mark 8:34-35 Jesus asks his followers to take up their cross and follow him. How can we ‘take up our cross’ and follow Christ as Lord of creation in an era of ecological trauma? Why not share stories of environmental campaigners, eg in Latin America, who have lost their lives in challenging powerful vested interests that are destroying God’s world.

=    In Mark 8:36-37 Jesus asks what good it is to gain the whole world but forfeit our souls. Is this verse calling us to focus only on the ‘spiritual’ gospel, or is it rather a challenge to the materialism that hardens our hearts against God, and against true Wisdom?

ACT

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