Seasons of Creation 2021: Fifth Week. Comboni missionaries’ experience in Italy

SEE

Comboni missionaries’ experience
Laudato si’ Handbook – Italian Province

The initiative stems from the Italian Province's Justice and Peace Commission. Tired of the constant discourse on the subject of lifestyles and wishing to do something practical to live the encyclical Laudato si, they thought of the Handbook as a tool for evaluating our personal and community lifestyles and to help us through a methodology for common decision-making and evaluation for a more sober lifestyle.

Initially, a study was carried out to prepare the reference tables that guide community planning and verification; an initial presentation of the document was made to the 2020 mission assembly and then, after collecting the indications, the final Handbook was produced, printed and distributed to all the communities of the Italian province. Italian lay missionary groups are also using it.

The various steps to be followed to ensure that our lifestyle is more sober are taken at meetings of the community council in which it is decided what topics to deal with and what intermediate objectives to achieve. The evaluation of the journey is also carried out in the community council. The whole province is involved. The Handbook is presented at the zonal meetings and then in each community. The greatest difficulties are with the presence of elderly brothers who find it difficult to understand the lifestyles discourse.

Since the initiative has only just been launched, it is still too early to take stock and celebrate the results. The journey has only just begun, and it will take a long time before results are seen. However, the fact that it is being openly discussed in the communities is certainly a wide-ranging journey and a first fruit. The action of the Spirit is precisely the fact that the journey has begun.

DISCERN

Insights for a biblical-ecological reflection on the readings of Sunday 3 October

A HOME AND A HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
Job 1:1 ; 2: 1-10; Psalm 26:, 1-12; Hebrews 1: 1-4; 2: 5-12; Marc 10: 2-16

=    For the third consecutive week, the Gospel speaks of the place of children in God’s kingdom. In Mark 10:14-15 Jesus blesses children and states, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Today’s children will inherit an impoverished and unstable world due to our failures to address climate and ecological breakdown. Many suffer from deep anxiety and despair. Yet, God’s kingdom belongs to ‘such as these’. How can we both learn from today’s children and young people, and also become like them in trust and in seeing clearly?

=    Hope is the key to living through despair. Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God speaks of a future hope that is guaranteed and certain. Even if today we see only glimpses and signs of hope amidst so much suffering, we can still live in the light of our prayer ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven’. One day, God’s kingdom will come in all its glorious fulness. That does not mean we passively wait. Rather it gives us the motivation to live today in the light of that future truth.

=    Hebrews 1:1-4 & 2:5-12 speak of Jesus as Lord of all creation. He is the one ‘through whom’ God made the universe (1:2), and who sustains all things ‘by his powerful word’ (1:3). He is ‘heir of all things (1:2). ‘now crowned with glory and honour (2:9) because of his saving death and suffering. We can have hope for the future of all creation, because Christ who died is now raised and reigns in glory. He is the one ‘for whom and through whom everything exists’ (2:10).

=    In some mysterious way, Hebrews 2 also suggests that we as believers, are caught up with Christ in his glory, made holy, and ‘crowned with glory and honour’, with all things placed under our feet (2:7-8, quoting Psalm 8). Back in Genesis 1, humans were made in God’s image and commissioned to reflect God’s loving purposes in leadership within creation. We have repeatedly failed, but here, as in Romans 8:19 which states ‘the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed’, it seems the Church (God’s ‘sons and daughters’) is once again given leadership within the community of creation. This is both a deep and humbling mystery, and a great privilege and responsibility.

ACT

Download the Handbook/Vademecum [Laudato si' Handbook] and join the journey to a more sustainable lifestyle with your community.