Missionaries of the Sacred

The earth is the Lord’s and all it holds,
the world and those who live there.
(Psalm 24:1)

Our prayers continue for the recovery and welfare of all those affected by the Gulf oil spill. Particularly, we are in solidarity with those persons whose sustenance is dependent upon the fishing industries. We are also united in prayer with those family members who lost loved ones in this tragedy as well as those whose jobs have been lost.

Certainly, this Gulf experience draws our attention to ecological stewardship. It reminds us that we need to better care for our environment. When we see creation as a sacrament of God’s presence in creation, we realize that we are inhabitants and stewards, not owners of creation. Responsibility to and accountability for creation are constitutive elements of the stewardship, which God has entrusted to us. Indeed, “Disciples, who practice stewardship, recognize God as the origin of life.”¹

Ecology refers to the “created beings and created things in relationship to one another and to their surroundings.”² Our ecosystem is a balance of nature, created by God. As stewards, we must esteem and respect our ecosystem as a gift from God. If this fundamental moral value is denied, “technology could become a “peril and not a resource for the human future.”³ Pollution of air and water threatens this delicate gift. As stewards of God’s creation, we, therefore, cannot subscribe to self-centered political gains, self-serving interest groups and those actions that do not consider the common good as the criteria for genuine human progress. Christian stewardship “consists in discovering how to properly understand the relationship between cyclical processes and linear developments, present in both nature and human civilization so that they coexist harmoniously and direct us toward the ultimate good which is God himself.”⁴ In our scientific efforts to develop humankind, we need to orient ourselves towards the common good of all human beings, “while respecting the end for which each creature was intended and the means necessary to achieve that end.”⁵ These efforts must also consider the possibility of grave accidents—such as the present Gulf spill--which inflict serious harm to persons and to the environment. States must ensure that “citizens are not exposed to dangerous pollutants or toxic wastes [and need to have] the right to a safe and healthy natural environment.”⁶ Most importantly, however, our Christian stewardship impels us not to place the onus of responsibility to resolve ecology problems only on the State. God calls each one of us of us to take responsibility to safeguard God’s creation.