RESPECT - for our Environment

Tomorrow, St Mary’s will help to ‘Clean Up Australia.’ This annual event reminds us of our responsibility to respect God’s gift of creation. From the beginning of time, human beings have been tasked with being the ‘keepers of creation’.

‘So God created humankind in his image… God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ (Book of Genesis, New Testament)

The words subdue and dominion, if taken literally in today’s world, suggest that humans have the right to overpower the earth for their own ends. However, the author of Genesis intended that these words be taken in the context of stewardship. Human beings have come to learn that our planet is fragile and needs to be taken care of.

The two Genesis stories of Creation do not present historical, scientific truth but they present deep religious truths about God, the meaning and purpose of the cosmos and the role of humanity. They are

Sacred Myths. Catholics believe that although the world was not created in six ‘24-hour days’, the creation stories reveal to us these divine and sacred truths:

• All of creation stems from an original act of God
• God intended creation to be GOOD (‘And God saw that it was good’ – this phrase is repeated 6 times in Genesis 1)
• God placed the responsibility of managing it and caring for it on humankind.

Human beings are ‘made in God’s image’; and each one has a spirit, the capacity to love, a conscience and unbound intelligence. The Catholic Church teaches that all humans have a responsibility to the land and all living beings, including fellow humans.

Please help us support the ‘least of our brothers and sisters’ this Lent by sending in money for our Project Compassion Boxes.