Dare to Care - October 7 2022
93. Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone.
93. Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone.
92. Moreover, when our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one.
90. This is not to put all living beings on the same level nor to deprive human beings of their unique worth and the tremendous responsibility it entails.
89. The created things of this world are not free of ownership: “For they are yours, O Lord, who love the living” (Wis 11:26).
87. When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures and to worship him in union with them. This sentiment finds magnificent expression in the hymn of Saint Francis of Assisi:
86. The universe as a whole, in all its manifold relationships, shows forth the inexhaustible riches of God.
85. God has written a precious book, “whose letters are the multitude of created things present in the universe”.
84. Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous.
83. The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things.
82. Yet it would also be mistaken to view other living beings as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination.
81. Human beings, even if we postulate a process of evolution, also possess a uniqueness which cannot be fully explained by the evolution of other open systems.