Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 13, 2023
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101323.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, – and tomorrow – we finish up our short journey with the minor prophets with two passages from Joel.
Joel the Prophet by Michelangelo
from the Sistine Chapel ceiling
Joel and his neighbors were living through a plague of locusts. The book begins with a stark warning to wake up and see the meaning of what is happening:
Listen to this, you elders!
Joel 1:1-5
Pay attention, all who dwell in the land!
Has anything like this ever happened in your lifetime,
or in the lifetime of your ancestors?…
What the cutter left
the swarming locust has devoured;
What the swarming locust left,
the hopper has devoured;
What the hopper left,
the consuming locust has devoured.
Wake up, you drunkards, and weep;
wail, all you wine drinkers,
Over the new wine,
taken away from your mouths.
Although Joel’s agricultural disaster is part of ancient history, like other seemingly remote scriptural passages, it bears a startlingly apropos message for us today.
Joel gave voice to a ravaged earth that could not speak for itself. In his writings, earth and its people are intimately connected – each affected by and bearing the consequences of the other’s suffering. The devastation of the wheat fields and vineyards has robbed the worshippers of their most important possession – the staples to offer in praise of God:
Gird yourselves and weep, O priests!
Joel 1:13-14
wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
The house of your God is deprived
of offering and libation.
Proclaim a fast,
call an assembly;
Gather the elders,
all who dwell in the land,
Into the house of the LORD, your God,
and cry to the LORD!
As Joel pleaded with his people to recognize their implication in the earth’s annihilation, so Pope Francis pleads with us in Laudate Deum:
Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc. (2) This is a global social issue and one intimately related to the dignity of human life.(3)
Pope Francis recognizes, as did the prophet Joel, that there are “deniers” – climate change deniers and deniers of the sins of complicity.
Joel warns that such sinful denial will bear consquences not only on his current generation but on their children:
Yes, it is near, a day of darkness and of gloom,
Joel 2: 1-2
a day of clouds and somberness!
Like dawn spreading over the mountains,
a people numerous and mighty!
Their like has not been from of old,
nor will it be after them,
even to the years of distant generations.
Pope Francis voices a similar warning:
Climate change is one of the principal challenges facing society and the global community. The effects of climate change are borne by the most vulnerable people, whether at home or around the world. In a few words, the Bishops assembled for the Synod for Amazonia said the same thing: “Attacks on nature have consequences for people’s lives”. And to express bluntly that this is no longer a secondary or ideological question, but a drama that harms us all, the African bishops stated that climate change makes manifest “a tragic and striking example of structural sin”. (3)
Many of us don’t want to read about climate change much less pray about it. A lot of us don’t have a clue how we can help reverse the cataclysmic tide. We may even be a “denier” ourselves! But if we are, we are in a very small minority:
Robust studies of climate change perceptions in Australia, the UK and America show that only very small numbers of people actually deny that climate change is happening. The figures range from between 5 to 8% of the population. However this small minority can be influential in casting doubt on the science, spreading misinformation and impeding progress on climate policies.
from the Australian Psychological Society
The other 92% to 95% of us must pray and act with the global community to respond effectively to the summons of Pope Francis:
I ask everyone to accompany this pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world that is our home and to help make it more beautiful, because that commitment has to do with our personal dignity and highest values. At the same time, I cannot deny that it is necessary to be honest and recognize that the most effective solutions will not come from individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the national and international level. (69)
Nonetheless, every little bit helps, and avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people. Yet what is important is something less quantitative: the need to realize that there are no lasting changes without cultural changes, without a maturing of lifestyles and convictions within societies, and there are no cultural changes without personal changes. (70)
Video: from the Vatican website introducing Laudate Deum
Lavish Mercy 
Unfortunately, many of the deniers are ones who stand to profit by continuing to produce goods that negatively impact the planet. Their shortsightedness and greed drive their actions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
😢😡
LikeLike