The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of
it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future
generations and towards humanity as a whole.
--Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 48

Living a Christian lifestyle, today, means showing what it looks
like to have a consciousness of the universal connectedness of
all life. What happens to the environment will affect those who
are poor first and most severely. Our faith teaches us to care
for all of creation and in particular for those who are most vulnerable.

There is, as in the parable of the fig tree "another year left before the
tree will be cut down." We, too, have a window of opportunity of what
scientists say is now six years before irreparable harm is done by global
warming. People who are poor and living on islands or near the coastline
will not survive some natural disasters caused by increased temperatures
around the planet. Let us respond to the grace of a call to care for all of
creation. Then, we may hope to bear fruit in the future and the fig tree
will have another chance to survive.

--Mary Elizabeth Clark SSJ

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