RESPECT - for our Environment

Last Friday, St Mary’s helped to ‘Clean Up Australia.’ This annual event reminds us of our responsibility to respect God’s gift of creation. From the beginning of time, human beings have been tasked with being the ‘keepers of creation’.

‘So God created humankind in his image… God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ (Book of Genesis, New Testament)

The words subdue and dominion, if taken literally, suggest that humans have the right to overpower the earth for their own ends. However, these words are to be taken in the context of stewardship. Human beings have come to learn that our planet is fragile and needs to be taken care of.

Catholics believe that all of creation stems from an original act of God and that God placed the responsibility of managing it and caring for it on humankind. Human beings are ‘made in God’s image’; and each one has a spirit, the capacity to love, a conscience and unbound intelligence. The Catholic Church teaches that all humans have a responsibility to the land and all living beings, including fellow humans.

Please help us support the ‘least of our brothers and sisters’ this Lent by sending in money for our Project Compassion Boxes.