Earth Day
Reflection
Our care for this earth is a sacred act. We honor and show our love for God by treating God’s creation, and all creatures, as precious and holy. On this Earth Day we pause and consider this responsibility.
Planetary abuse is not a future problem but a present reality that we are facing. As we witness the climate related events that are happening, it would be easy to despair about the current state of our planet. But there is still hope. There are still steps that can be taken to change course.
The theme for Earth Day 2022 is Invest In Our Planet. It calls businesses, governments, and citizens to a partnership for the planet. While there is still time to choose a prosperous and sustainable future, and to restore nature and build a healthy planet for our children and their children, time is short. It will take all of us to assume our responsibility, support the needed changes and hold those in power responsible for inaction.
We all need a healthy Earth for our health, survival, and happiness. Whether we will live on a healthy planet is not a choice- it is a necessity if we are to live at all.
Prayer
May we not think of Earth just today, but cooperate responsibly to restore its health every day of our lives.
Action
- Support planting billions of trees as one of the biggest and cheapest ways of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere
- Support organic farmers
- Make an impact for our planet by cleaning up our public spaces
- Join Global Earth Challenge
- Turn off the lights when not in use
- Use environmentally friendly cleaning products
- Skip plastic. Buy glass or paper products
- Eat less meat
- Use a recyclable water bottle
- Push for climate and environmental literacy education
- Go pesticide free
- Ask for green power
- Contact your representatives. Hold them accountable
- Stand against deforestation
- Grow an organic vegetable garden
Suggested Reading
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
Job 38:4
Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 92
Each community can take from the bounty of Earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect Earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 67
The Great Work, now as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. The deepest cause of the present devastation is found in a mode of consciousness that has established a radical discontinuity between the human and other modes of being and the bestowal of all rights on the humans.
Thomas Berry
This earth is what we all have in common.
Wendell Berry
He that plants trees loves others beside himself.
Thomas Fuller
We do not inherit Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
Native American Proverb
If we are ever to halt climate change and conserve land, water and other resources, not to mention reduce animal suffering, we must celebrate Earth Day every day — at every meal.
Ingrid Newkirk
I had assumed that Earth, the spirit of the Earth, noticed exceptions — those who wantonly damage it and those who do not. But the Earth is wise. It has given itself into the keeping of all, and all are therefore accountable.
Alice Walker
To treat all parts of Earth as sacred and Earth’s beings as our neighbors to be respected and loved…
Land Ethic Statement, Sisters of Saint Joseph, Brentwood, NY