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A Lenten Prayer

We were told by the Creator, “This is your land.  Keep it for me until I come back.”   
      Thomas Banyaca, Hopi Elder

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it. 
      Genesis 2:15

“There is a Maori custom known as manaakitanga, which is taught in all of the public schools in Aotearoa (New Zealand).  It translates as showing kindness, generosity, and care for others.  It includes looking out for someone, protecting them, providing hospitality and support.  At the core of the word is the care of all people, whether great or small.  It makes every person you meet significant and valued.  It places the collective above the individual.  Guests, strangers, and others have importance equal to if not greater than one’s own.  Manaakitanga points to what is missing in our lives at this time: a sense of connectedness to others that provides respect and honor, a universal need, a quality that is essential if we are to come together and end the climate crisis. “      [Debra Anne Haaland, Regeneration]

The indigenous, and the creative variety of God’s beautiful creation have much to teach us if we are open to learning from other world views. In the following article, Franciscan Sister and writer Ilia Delio asks whether the Church is stuck in a “machine” stage of change…


“For centuries the Church has operated like a well-oiled machine, but the oil is running low and the machine is running down. —Ilia Delio

With the rise of modern science, the world machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era, and the Church adapted its medieval cosmology to the new mechanistic paradigm. . .  Has the Church become mechanistic like so many other world systems? Is it “stuck in a rut,” and if so, can it find its way out of the rut into a new future? 

Jesus lived with imagination, and he preached with imagination: “Imagine a small mustard seed,” he said. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (Luke 17:6). He aimed to instill imagination in his disciples so they could think the unthinkable and do the incredible. Similarly, it is helpful to imagine the Church in a new way that enkindles us to think the unthinkable and do the incredible. [1]

Delio writes about open systems, like those found in the natural world, as a model for the Church to reconnect with the dynamism of the gospel. Here she writes about her own call as a religious sister to follow where God was leading: 

I had come to a point of inner freedom where I knew God was calling me to do new things; thus, I was impelled to step out of the comforts of institutional life and, with another Sister, take the risk of living religious life in a new way. I think the term open system best describes our way of life. We live in a working-class neighborhood in DC and financially support ourselves (we pay taxes); if we don’t work, we don’t eat. We discuss the aims of the community together; we try to share responsibilities for the community as much as possible; we pray and play as community, but we respect the autonomy of each person and the work of the Spirit in each life. . .  An open-systems way of life works best on shared vision and dialogue and least on control and lack of communication. Trust is an essential factor, but trust requires kenosis, emptying oneself of control and power, and making space for the other to enter in. . .  An open-systems community, like the physical world itself, is based on relationships, not roles or duties but bonds of friendship, sisterhood (or brotherhood), respect, charity, forgiveness, and justice. Where these values are active and alive, life evolves toward richer, more creative forms, never losing sight that wholeness—catholicity—is at the heart of it. [2]”

These are the values we tillers and guardians of the garden need to have with the garden and all its creatures entrusted to us.  Today more than ever, an extraordinary teaching about the earth is needed, a way of knowing that erases the separation between people and nature, a disconnection that has caused the climate crisis.  That knowledge is here if we are open and willing to listen to other world views; and like Jesus live with imagination thinking the unthinkable and doing the incredible; and making space for the other to enter in.

Prayer For Our Community
God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough, because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord. Amen.