Two centuries ago, the American chestnut tree in the Carolinas stood 120 feet tall and 10 feet wide . In New England, priceless chestnuts trees were harvested for furniture, ships, and homes. The chestnut was quick to grow. By the time an ash tree has made a baseball bat, a chestnut had made a dresser. At Christmas, earthy and sweet chestnuts roasted on an open fire. By 1940, a fungus ravaged every chestnut tree, 4 billion in native ranges vanished into myth. In Richard Powers’ Pulitizer Prize winning novel, The Overstory, a 100 years earlier, a young man in love pocketed 6 chestnuts and traveled with his new wife from New York City to Iowa where they were planted in the rich soil of their farmland. One of the six seeds outlived the farmer for generations. Five planted, one survived. One remained standing tall against the loss of the others. We plant seeds to keep the lessons of the past and promises of a hope-filled future.
Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si is the seed for hope for our earth. It is an urgent call to tackle the ecological crisis by making a shift in how we as Catholics view our role in the world. Pope Francis explained that caring for and about what we hold in common is our vocation. God is our common inheritance; creation, our common good; the earth, our common home. They are given to all of us to cherish, share and bequeath to future generations. No one is entitled to take sole ownership of what God has gifted to all. This is the Augustinian golden rule for a sustainable life for all, a veritable ecology based on how we relate to ourselves, our Creator, one another and the rest of creation. “Let us love God, for he made these things and he is not far off, for he did not make them and then go away: they are from him but also in him.”
With the call to care for our common home, seven goals give us a path to a hope-filled future. Pope Francis puts a special emphasis on the family and its importance as the place we first learn about Ecological Education, one of the seven Laudato Si’ Goals. Like charity which begins at home, our path begins at home and explores ways we can plant seeds of knowledge to educate and understand the implications of turning away from God-made to desire man-made, to combat the greed and selfishness that sometimes holds our hearts, and to love God and His Christ before ourselves.
While Ecological Education can “encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us,” it is in the “simple gestures of heartfelt courtesy” and “little daily actions” that it is taken from our own homes to our common home. (LS 211, 213). Ecological Education actions, encouraging learning about our common home and the ways to protect it, can be done during Lent in your home and community. Here are some ideas:
- Read a paragraph or passage from Laudato Si’ every week; discuss it as a family and decide on concrete actions to take in response
- Map three to five different trees at your home or in a local park and find out whether they are native, domesticated, or invasive
- If appropriate, volunteer at your children’s or grandchildren’s school, supporting activities that teach ecological awareness, such as reading a book on ecology or writing letters of thanks to teachers who focus on ecology
- If your family keeps a pet, encourage your children to consider how the pet represents all animal life
- If your family keeps a garden or a collection of potted plants, encourage your children to consider how it represents all plant life
- Help your children experience nature in mindful ways by taking a walk and demonstrating to them how to quietly listen to God’s message in Creation
- Emphasize Catholic social teaching on human rights, especially the rights of those who are most vulnerable, during times of family prayer
- Involve all members of the family in the planning of Laudato Si’ initiatives, with special attention to children and young people.
- Share the comprehensive approach of integral ecology: that it respects all life on Earth, including human life
- Identify a neighborhood rubbish dump, empty lot, plants, install ponds and other habitats, or otherwise do what is necessary to restore the space to become a thriving habitat.
Dive Deeper into Ecological Education:
CAFOD—an international development charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales—has provided an invaluable webinar outlining 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including specific goals related to Ecological Education.
As further inspiration, each step of the way, Green Churches, a charitable organization helping Christian communities in Canada care for God’s Creation, offers these beautiful prayers for creation from the Psalms and the Saints.
Pope Francis tells us that “Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life.” (LS 213). Families around the world are sowing the seeds of gratitude and forgiveness, justice and peace, and the precious protection of our common home, growing a garden of care together.
As for the American chestnut tree, several agencies and universities have sought to restore a blight resistant American chestnut tree to the nation’s forests and have planted thousands of trees. In Wisconsin, 2500 chestnut trees are growing on 60 acres, which is the world’s largest remaining stand of the American chestnut. These trees are the descendants of those planted by Martin Hicks, an early settler in the area, who planted fewer than a dozen trees in the late 19th century. When all appears lost, hope remains. It takes but one seed to begin anew.
Deborah Sundquist
The Basilica Creation Justice Committee