Bolivia, 04/22/2021, Sr. Socorro García, JPIC Delegate Province of Los Andes.- “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now" (Rom.8:22). The book of Genesis tells us how Creation came about little by little, God's care and dedication to create, leads us to think about the process of gestation. The gestation of the earth which at each stage leads us to exclaim: "and God saw that it was good..." (Gen. 1,12).
April 22: Earth Day
Gestation is a process of LIFE, of giving birth to a new being that will inhabit the earth, take care of it and enrich it with its discoveries and advances. When the moment of birth approaches, the earth cries out in pain but also in joy at the sight of this new being that will inhabit and make history.
When a woman is pregnant, a life is gestating inside her, we do not see it but we know it is there. We see the growth of the womb but not the contractions within it. The earth engenders and initiates the gestation of a new being that will make it great, fulfilling the plan of God the Creator.
In the beginning all was happiness, God walks in the garden in the company of the man and the woman (Gen. 3,8) who inhabit the earth that gave birth to them. God the Creator is happy about this birth.
"Mother-Father God dreamt from the beginning of a world of harmony among all his creatures: he dreamt that women and men would communicate through the language of love; that all his creatures would consider themselves as brothers and sisters with all the others: that the tree could never say to the water -I don't need you-; that all animate beings would never say to the air -We don't need you-; that the same stone would be able to sing a warm song to brother sun; that sister moon would illuminate with her silvery light the paths of all peoples...." (Francisco MEJÍA URZÚA)
Today the earth CRIES, not because of labor pains, but because it is being killed and everything begotten by the creator God is being destroyed. Ambition has become present in the hearts of men and women, and the cries of the earth are not cries because the time has come to give birth to a new being. Now that being, to whom it gave life, is having its own life ripped away from it by ambition and selfishness.
- We see an Amazon in flames of fire
- The use of chemical products multiplied, polluting the waters of the rivers.
- Environmental pollution became more cruel in the big cities.
- Global warming caused the poles to continue to thaw.
"And the project of death, spearheaded by the ‘great of the world’, wrapped its black cloak around the whole of humanity. Our common home began to collapse without remedy. Our mother earth is now groaning in labor pains" (Francisco MEJÍA URZÚA).
Faced with this reality, indifference was present; some admired the development and progress without seeing the consequences and the toll that the earth would take.
“Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world. Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded”. (Laudato Si, No.25)
As consecrated women, we need to reconcile ourselves with nature. It is a matter of communion with life. We are challenged to review our relationship with all of creation and the task of asking ourselves what is our contribution to making our spirituality an Eden garden, where we can once again walk and converse with God?
