Our recent Chapter calls us to recognize that all is

interconnected through and in

We are challenged to seek communal and personal environmental sustainability.We are called to: Educate ourselves and continue to develop

and deepen our ecological spirituality. Collaborate with diverse organizations around

environment and environmental education. Transform the Motherhouse properties and

designated intentional communities into models of ecological sustainability.

We are part of, not apart from, our Earth.

This demands a spirituality which is:

CONTEMPLATIVE

ASCETIC

PROPHETIC

To be able to envision what is being born and what is dying in the womb/tomb of transformation, we must look deeply into soul-level territory.

TOWARD A 21st- CENTURYSPIRITUALITY

AwakeningTo

Ecospirituality

We are called to educate ourselves and continue to develop and deepen our ecological spirituality

The Word Ecology is from the Greek OIKOS, which means HOME. Earth is our Home.

Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, makes a very clear statement about our interconnectedness with God’s Earth:“ We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen.2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.” (2)

The Universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence

there is mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in

the soul, but also to discover God in all things.(233)

(We must be aware) that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us . . . that Christ . . . is risen and intimately present to each being, surrounding it with his

affection and penetrating it with his light. (221)

Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. If I spend enough time withthe tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would neverhave to prepare a sermon. Meister Eckhart

“The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and

God in all things. Mechthild

Earth is our Home. We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen.2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements..

There is mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.

(We must be aware) that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw – and knew I saw – all things in God and God in all things.

We are called to collaborate with diverse organizations around environment and environmental education.

READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMESAt all times the Church caries the responsibility ofREADING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel --

if it is to carry out its task.Constitution on the Church in the Modern World

The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is

a sacred trust.

God’s Earth, with its finite resources, is a common concern of all peoples.

It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet. (Patriarch Bartholomew quoted in Laudato Si’) (9)

LCWR 2015 Assembly Resolution: Systemic Causes of Injustice.

RESOLUTION: Grounded in our belief that action on behalf of justice is a constitutive element of the Gospel, we, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, affirm the interrelatedness of the justice concerns addressed by our recent assembly resolutions. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, we commit ourselves to examine the root causes of injustice and our own complicity as congregations, and to work to effect systemic change as we struggle to establish economic justice, abolish modern-day slavery, ensure immigrant rights, promote nonviolence, and protect Earth and its biosphere. We pledge prayer, education, and advocacy and commit to using our collective voice, resources and power in collaboration with others to establish justice which reflects God’s abundant love and desire that all may have life.

Your text here

Theologian S. Elizabeth Johnson calls us to an ecological vocation: a call from God to care for

God’s Earth – our home.

We are called to transform the Motherhouse properties and designated intentional communities into models of ecological sustainability.

EarthConnection

Co-Directors:Winnie Brubach and

Caroljean Willie

Melink Corporation

Given the troubled and complex world in which we live, how could those of us vowed to serve God in Religious Life and the rest of our Charity family

Be LEADERS for

Conversion to sustainable living?

VOWED

POVERTY AS

LIBERATING

FRUGALITY

CHARACTERISTICS

Universe perspectiveEverything is sacred

Biocentric Shows balance,

interdependence &

adaptation

Free – the freedom

of the children of God

Humility,Simplicity and Charity: our HUMAN PLACE IN NATURE

And we remember that God is ever present!

Let’s take some time at our tables to share the many ways we are already living in an ecologically sustainable manner and perhaps the ways we know we could do better.What other ways might be do

this, individually and as a family of Charity?

I breathe in the Universe

and say “yes”

to the now. Elizabeth & David Dodson Gray

I breathe inGod’s

Universeand I say

‘YES’to loving God

in All.