A call to care together

Caring for our brothers and sisters means caring for the home we share.

Connecting the global Sacred Heart family

By Suzanne Cooke, RSCJ

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.

This responsibility is “essential to a life of virtue” (Laudato Si’ 217).

The Laudato Si’ Goals, developed by the Vatican Dicastery and the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.

Now the question becomes how we act on our renewed attentiveness to our home. How can our reflection and prayer ignite in us the passion to act? And what can we continue to do to remain united in Christ’s heart through our prayer for one another and our world?

These are important questions, especially in light of the Vatican launching the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. The action platform outlines specific actions and goals for Catholics across seven sectors —families, parishes and dioceses, religious orders, educational institutions, health care centers, economic institutions and lay organizations—and invites groups to complete them within a seven-year period.

The call to care for our common home holds unprecedented urgency for all members of the global Sacred Heart family. The Society has sought and continues to seek creative and effective ways to heed this urgency. As a result, the Society’s International Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Committee created the JPIC Information and Learning Center, which includes the JPIC Learning Hub, to provide information about the responses to this call from others in the global Sacred Heart family. The Center joins various Sacred Heart communities as Religious of the Sacred Heart and partners in mission develop programs and actions in support of our common home. The Center’s integrated movement weaves together both contemplation and action—integral aspects of the Society’s charism.

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat hoped that as members of the Sacred Heart family we would live as transmitters of love. During the October 4, 2021, symposium entitled Faith and Science: Towards COP26, Pope Francis suggested three elements in our collective work to care for our common home: openness to interdependence, dynamic love and respect. These three active attitudes of heart can and will strengthen our capacity to discover and reveal God’s love in the heart of the world.

“Care for relationships is at the root of our tradition. We want to develop this tradition in new, more profound ways. Today, we are more sensitive to the importance of interrelationships, and so we would like to strengthen collaboration with other groups equally committed to justice, peace and integrity of creation. We recognize, as well, the urgency to enliven collaboration among ourselves and with the entire Sacred Heart family. This unity gives us more energy and creativity to transform unjust structures.” – Being Artisans of Hope in Our Blessed and Broken World, p. 1

Visit the JPIC Learning Hub by going to https://rscj-jpic.org/about/jpic-learning-hub.

For more information on the Laudato Si’ Action Platform visit https://laudatosiactionplatform.org