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2025 Season of Creation: “Seeds of Peace and Hope” Reflection #6 October 1st, 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: 6th part of Pope Leo’s letter for the 2025 Season of Creation (view PDF)
Maurice tills his garden
REFLECTION: “The biblical texts…tell us to ‘till and keep’ the garden of the world.” Pope Leo quotes or references Pope Francis’ legacy 10 times in this letter! Here we read from Laudato Si (paragraph 67-Reflection Page 2) about tilling and keeping. When I till my garden, I am working with it. I know that neither I nor my garden would exist without microbes.
That kind of recognition humbles one. > (humbles = humus = brought back to Earth)
Thomas Berry calls for humans to be in a mutually-enhancing relationship with Earth. Francis and Leo both set forth Thomas Berry’s call as implied in the sustainable wisdom of the Bible.
ACTION: Tyrants don’t consider microbes. We should! If we are to be effective in our ecological vocations, tilling and keeping, we should engage in wonder and awe at the billions of microbes in one teaspoon of healthy soil. Learn what is literally beneath your feet, and what you owe your life to, by watching this short video from the BBC: “Why Soil is One of Most Amazing Things on Earth”.
(Image 1: Garden: Maurice Lange)
(Image 2: Soil on a Farm: by Meganelford0, Pixabay)
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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
- Week 5: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 6: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 7: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 8: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 9: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
2025 Season of Creation: “Seeds of Peace and Hope” Reflection #5 September 25th, 2025
(By Maurice Lange, Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & founder of the Oblate Ecological Initiative)
“For (indigenous communities), land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values.” (Laudato Si #146)
READ: 5th part of Pope Leo’s letter for the 2025 Season of Creation (view PDF)
REFLECTION: : “Nature itself is reduced at times to a bargaining chip, a commodity…”
Pope Leo does not mince words. Neither does this photo.
- Where have you experienced Creation being reduced to a commodity?
- How is such denigration of Earth, which “is like a sister…and mother” to us, akin to misogyny? to rape?
- What within myself prefers to remain unconscious in terms of how I relate with Earth?
ACTION: Pick up and sit with Elizabeth Johnson’s powerful words in the updated (2022) small but classic work “Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit”.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Vlad Chetan, Pexels.com)
“…our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.” (Laudato Si #1)
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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
- Week 5: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection
- Week 6: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 7: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
Faith Meets Mining: Fr. Séamus Finn, OMI, Among Speakers at PERUMIN 37 September 23rd, 2025
Fr Séamus Finn, OMI participated and was a panelist at PERUMIN 37 https://perumin.com/perumin37/public/en in Arequipa, Peru as a member of the Mining & Faith Reflections Initiative ( MFRI ): https://mfri-global.org The Mining and Faith Reflections Initiative (MFRI) begins with an acknowledgement of their common humanity. The churches have heard the calls from communities around the world for mining companies to work for the common good.
The Mining Summit of PERUMIN 37 brought together national and international leaders with a shared goal:
to set Peru, the region, the mining industry, and Peruvians on a path toward a more prosperous and sustainable future.MEETING INFO: https://perumin.com/perumin37/public/en
2025 Season of Creation: “Seeds of Peace and Hope” Reflection #4 September 15th, 2025
(By Maurice Lange, Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & founder of the Oblate Ecological Initiative)
“(St. Francis) shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.” (Laudato Si #10)
READ: 4th part of Pope Leo’s letter for the 2025 Season of Creation (view PDF)
REFLECTION: : “…we seem incapable of recognizing that the destruction of nature does not affect everyone in the same way.” Be it mountain-top removal in West Virginia or flooding in Thailand (pictured), our human mining, refining and changing of the climate impacts first and worst those made poor. Upon further pondering: are we indeed incapable of recognizing this…or, have we grown unfeeling? Between political 
polarization and our ever-increasing bonding with screens and machines, I fear that our culture is becoming exponentially insensate. Demonizing indigenous, immigrants and wilderness seemingly justifies our hard-heartedness. During this Season of Creation: how am I to be counter-cultural? What aspect of my prophetic calling from baptism needs to be realized?
(Photo: Flooded village in Thailand where
Presentation Sisters minister)
ACTION: Practice mercy – including Pope Francis’ addition to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Live simply – so that others may simply live. Grow in compassion – from the Latin “com-passio” or “to suffer with”. *
“Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.” (Laudato Si #48)
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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
- Week 5: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 6: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
- Week 7: 2025 Season of Creation Reflection – COMING SOON
Ministry in Motion: Fr. Talang & Br. Chiran Travel to Khasi Indigenous Village September 12th, 2025
Fr. Valentine Talang, OMI and Br. Jacob Chiran, an Oblate seminarian, walk 3 hours to Balarma Punjee, a Khasi indigenous village in Bangladesh to offer a Funeral Mass. Oblates run the parish in Sylhet Diocese.
