Caring for our brothers and sisters means caring for the home we share.
A call to care together Connecting the global Sacred Heart family By Suzanne Cooke, RSCJ
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Heart
2021 | Vol. 18, No. 3
The fragility of our common home becomes more and more evident as we witness natural disasters, hear of rising sea levels and learn of the forced migrations of people from their homes that are no longer habitable. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis offers all people of God witnessing the fracturing of the Earth both hope and challenge. While most understand the scope of this encyclical, it is more difficult to remain focused on developing the “loving awareness” of our common home that Pope Francis is calling us to integrate into our attitudes and actions. This call to live in right relationship with our God, with our neighbor and with our common home echoes the vision of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat. Discovering and revealing God’s love in the heart of reality necessitates attentiveness to all relationships including with all of Creation. Driven by the ethic of caring about the future of our planet and called to be One Body, we, Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ), begin our work with prayer. This past fall, as an invitation to prayer, the International JPIC Committee of the Society of the Sacred Heart invited members of the global Sacred Heart family to join the ecumenical family around the world in celebration of the Season of Creation. This annual moment to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation focused on the theme A Home for All: Renewing the “Oikos” of God. Oikos is the Greek word for “home,” or “household.” By rooting our theme in the concept of oikos, we collectively celebrated the integral web of relationships that sustain the well-being of the Earth.
