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Jim McKendrick, President of The Socieity of St Vincent de Paul in Scotland writes our latest blog in which he reflects on God's beautiful gift of creation.

"He sprinkles snow like birds alighting" (Eccl 43:18). Whenever I read these words that rejoice in the Glory of God to be found in his Creation, I am reminded of a winter's evening in early January.

Along with a group of Tanzanian students, I emerged from a university building into a snowfall. Having never seen snow before, they were ecstatic. They began to act like small children. Laughing and rejoicing, they caught snowflakes in their hands, marvelling at the lightness and delicacy of each snowflake and how quickly it melted away. They turned their faces to the sky so that the flakes could touch their faces and melt. Finally, inevitably, a snowball fight commenced. Their joy reminded me of the grandeur of God and the wonder of Creation and brought home the rhythm of the seasons and the way Nature renews itself in accordance with God's creative genius.

Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si emphasises that creative genius. The first social encyclical in the Catholic Church to address care for the environment and environmental justice in a direct and specific way, it complements Catholic Social Teaching that our responsibility as good stewards of creation is to care for our world and not ‘steal’ resources from future generations.  Francis calls us to an ecological conversion, and invites us to praise God for the gifts of creation.

He encourages us to contemplate the beauty, complexity and interconnectivity of Creation; to see ourselves as in it and of it. Drawing on his Jesuit/ Ignatian spirituality background and the spirituality of St. Francis, the Pope invites us to open our eyes and hearts to discover in Creation the loving presence and self-gift of God. He is convinced, as was Ignatius, that we will then find our hearts stirred with grateful love.

He writes, "The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person's face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things. Saint Bonaventure teaches us that contemplation deepens the more we feel the working of God's grace within our hearts and the better we learn to encounter God in creatures outside ourselves "(223)...

This passage resonates well with Ignatian spirituality: that God is at work everywhere - in work, relationships, culture, the arts, creation itself. God's presence is in the everyday activities of ordinary life. God is an active God, always at work, inviting us to an ever-deeper relationship. As Ignatius said,  "All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully."

Pope Francis says the problem is of concern to all, but Christianity has something special to offer in its understanding that nature is a tremendous gift of a personal Creator, to be conserved and developed for the purposes God has ordained. He describes how everything fits together; and explains what this ought to mean for our attitudes, goals and actions:

"We have to realise that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”

 The changing of the seasons prompted me to reflect on God who is always present in the world, continuously supporting what He has created, working  to sustain what He has created in order that it continue. Yet somehow, He transcends our understanding of the natural world, as the Prologue to John's Gospel so beautifully illustrates. The Jesuit poet, Gerald Manley Hopkins expressed it:

"He Fathers-forth whose beauty is past change.  Praise Him!"

Don't miss this week's blog, in it Betty Gillick of the Motherwell Justice and Peace Group tracks the events which lead her to welcoming and supporting refugees from Syria into her community.  A truly inspiring read.

Sr Isabel Smyth writes our latest blog and reflects on the signs of hope that are all around should we choose to see them. 

As we start the New Year it’s good to consider beginnings, to take stock of our lives and look back with gratitude and maybe even regret while facing the future with hope and perhaps even courage.

It’s good to look back and give thanks for the good things that have happened to us and please God there have been good things. In spite of much of the negativity that we hear in the news there’s much to be grateful for in our world today.

Iain Macwhirter, the political editor of the Scottish newspaper, The Herald, recently acknowledged that many good news stories never get attention in the press. He set out some of the good things that have happened and perhaps been missed:

extreme poverty has fallen by 70% and the UN has announced that extreme poverty should be eradicated within the next decade; the number of terrorist atrocities has fallen massively in the past forty years and is in decline across the world; the UN has adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a great result for the Nobel Prize Winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN; the move to renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Last year 54% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption was produced by renewable energy. All this is good news and a sign of hope that things can and do change.

In our own small worlds there are also signs of hope. I’ve always been taken by the idea of kingdom spotting – that is looking for signs of the Kingdom of God around us – courage, determination in the face of difficulties, justice, compassion, service, love, struggle to be the best we can be. There are lots of examples of people recycling, caring for sick and aged relatives, caring for children and those with disabilities of all sorts, campaigning for justice and simply living a good, wholesome life in their families and among their friends and neighbours.  There’s a lot of good out there if we have eyes to see it.

But it’s not perfect by any manner of means. There’s much still to be done on an international scale as well as a local and personal one. This, I suppose, is where New Year’s resolutions come in. I’m not too keen on them as they’re usually difficult to keep and can become a burden. What I am keen on is looking to the future and realising that we can play our part in the future of our world and our planet – not so much by setting ourselves specific goals but by changing our mind set and way of looking at life. I would want myself and all of us to realise that this world will unfold as a result of our choices and actions, that we hold in our hands the future of our race and our planet, that we can offer one another and creation the gift of loving kindness which recognises that we are all brothers and sisters and that the well-being of one affects the well-being of all.  The choice is ours.  Will we, as Rabbi Rami Shapiro asks in his book, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness, “engage this moment with kindness or with cruelty, with love or with fear, with generosity or scarcity, with a joyous heart or an embittered one?”

The Rabbi tells us that this is our choice and that no one can make it for us. If we choose kindness, love, generosity, and joy, he says, then we will discover in that choice the Kingdom of God, heaven, nirvana, this-worldly salvation. If we choose cruelty, fear, scarcity, and bitterness, then we will discover in that choice the hellish states of which so many religions speak …...Heaven and hell are both inside of us.

 It is our choice that determines just where we and our world will reside.

originally published in interfaith journeys http://www.interfaithjourneys.net/