CST#7:

There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle. Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us, such as avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices. All of these reflect a generous and worthy creativity which brings out the best in human beings. Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity.

(Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 211)

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Saint Francis of Assisi

YOUR FINAL CHALLENGE!

Current Issues on Care for Creation

STOP YOUR JUNK MAIL.

"...it takes an average of 24 trees to produce one ton of the paper most used in junk mailers and catalogs. That's approximately 96 million trees per year in the US alone.

The EPA states over 50% of junk mail is not recycled, meaning 48 million trees are thrown away. That's the equivalent of chopping down a tree in every other yard across the nation.

With each ton of paper using between 2,500-6,000 gallons of water, the junk mail industry uses 10-24 BILLION gallons of water each year.

With the typical direct mail response rate at about 2%, that means 9.8-23.5 billion gallons of water, 23 and a half trees, and enough energy to power 245,000 homes is wasted each year."

(sustainablebabysteps.org)

Take Action on Care for Creation

• culture of:
• convenience
• disposability
• excess
• animal neglect and abuse
• habitat loss
• factory farming
• pollution
• sustainability as a "fad"

• appreciate creation by spending time in it!
• reduce, THEN reuse, THEN recycle
• use a water filter/ stainless steel water bottle
• avoid packaging that cannot be recycled
• bring reusable take-out containers for leftovers
• consider adopting a shelter pet or helping at shelters
• compost!
• shop locally - Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery!!

Saint of

Care for Creation

Tradition on

Care for Creation

CST#7:

Care for God's Creation

Tradition on Care for Creation

Scripture on Care for Creation

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. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.

(Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 48)

Let the earth bless the Lord,

praise and exalt him above all forever...

Everything growing on earth, bless the Lord;

praise and exalt him above all forever.

Daniel 3:74-76

Scripture on Care for Creation

Ever since the creation of the world,

his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.

As a result, they have no excuse...

Romans 1:20