2025 Season of Creation: “Seeds of Peace and Hope” Reflection #3
September 5th, 2025
(By Maurice Lange, Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & founder of the Oblate Ecological Initiative)
“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God” (Laudato Si #84)
READ: 3rd part of Pope Leo’s letter for the 2025 Season of Creation (view PDF)
Image by Adriano Gadini, Pixabay; Tatiana S. , Pixabay
REFLECTION: “…the prophet contrasts justice and law with the desolation of the desert …”. Indeed, Isaiah contrasts these quite well: justice provides peace and fecundity while injustice ravages and desolates. You’ve heard of “desertification”? (cf: Laudato Si #89) It is a process of ecological degradation in which fertile land becomes arid and loses or reduces its productivity. Much of Earth is currently undergoing a process of desertification due to human factors including climate change. Pope Benedict XVI once observed that: “the external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast”. What is fostering internal desertification?
ACTION: While working with the soil of my garden, I’ve thought that if more people had direct contact with Earth, they would be healthier. For God’s caress to be felt in our world, Pope Leo reminds us that together with prayer, both determination and concrete actions are necessary. *
“…reducing water consumption, planting trees, reusing…all of these reflect a generous and worthy creativity which brings out the best in human beings.” (Laudato Si #211)
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Visit the Presentation Sisters, US Province’s WEBSITE
READ MORE OF MAURICE’S WEEKLY REFLECTIONS
- Week 1: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 2: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 3: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 4: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 5: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
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Related keywords: 2021 Season of Creation, 2025 2025 Season of Creation, climate action, climate change, Ecology, Laudato Si, maurice lange, oblate ecological initiative, Presentation Sisters
