Caring for Creation
The Muslim bowing five times daily, the Jew kissing the mantle of the Torah, the Hindu marking her forehead, the Catholic genuflecting before the tabernacle, the Sikh touching his head to the ground, and the Protestant raising up the holy writ.
Such signs of reverence in the unique home of each of these religious traditions. 
Do we also show reverence for what Pope Francis calls our “common home” of God’s created world?
I recently came across, actually biked across, a secular posting, Prayer of the Woods, which I later discovered came down through Portuguese folklore over centuries throughout Europe. It invokes, no actually pleads, reverence for the natural habitat ending the prayer, “harm me not.”
The earth gives her life for us.
Just the woods themselves alone give us heat, shade, fruit, beams for houses, timber for boats, wood for doors, tool handles, tables, beds, cradles and coffins.
And beauty.
Everyday redeeming love is Christ suffering the groaning of creation dying from neglect, waste and lack of reverence. Thus, our Sisters of the Redeemer prophetically promising to embrace our call to Redemptive Love for all Creation.
How do you and I bow, kiss, mark, genuflect, touch and raise up a commitment to contemplate, live and proclaim reverence for this, our “common home?”
– Fr. Joe Driscoll