I think this may well be our 21st year of commemorating St. Francis of Assisi with a blessing of the animals. Mostly domestic animals, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs and our friendly chickens.
On these occasions I have spoken/written a fair bit about animals, their relationship to us, their intelligence and intuition, how they help us and how we are to care for them. I have spoken/written a fair bit about creation embedded in the earth, water, and sky and about lightening our footprint on earth.
Compassion acting with compassion, acting with passion is a central idea in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. One of the basic tenets or marks of all the major religions.
This week I am taking a different approach and writing about ministry, a term we use a lot in the church. The broadest definition of ministry rooted in biblical tradition is that we are to be servants, to be helpful, to give aid. Ministry is the living out of the great commandment to Love our Neighbour and Love God.
To go back to the biblical base we are to be merciful as God is merciful, and ministry is about being merciful. We are to be merciful as God is merciful, a frequent phrase in scripture. But another translation is that we are to be compassionate as God is compassionate.
Jesus was a person of compassion. Perhaps when we think of the word compassionate we think it is something strictly emotional, a little soft and fuzzy, sympathy or empathy. Yet it is more. It is also the rational and involves the ideas of fairness, justice, and interdependence. One dictionary definition says compassion is the consciousness of distress and the desire to alleviate it, a definition not restricted just to people in distress.
Compassion/acting with compassion, acting with passion is a central idea in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. One of the basic tenets or marks of all the major religions.
But what is it we are called to do? What is it that are we passionate about? What is it that we do with compassion? We feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, pray, foster community, reach out to others; we do things for and with others. These ministries involve many different people and many different activities. There are those who work at community care and the breakfast program, those who visit in the hospitals, those who volunteer in hospitals and care homes, those who cook for others, those who help neighbours, and those who assist with worship duties. This is by no means an exhaustive list, yet all of these are done quietly with no call for recognition.
And for some ministry is embedded in our vocations—doctors, nurses, counsellors, aids for the physically and mentally challenged, teachers and so on.
What is your passion? What is your ministry? And what about St. Francis?
Francis saw that all of nature reflected God; that we can know and see the presence of God in the earth, in the sky and in the ocean, all the creatures and plants. Francis took a special interest in the creatures around him. He saw that his calling, and though he was disparaged by his family and the powers in Rome, he continued on.
For St. Francis to love God was to love all of creation. To love God was to care for all of creation.
Frances was not alone in his understanding of God and creation. In the 11th and 12th centuries Christian mystics like Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and Meister Eckhart all wrote and taught this understanding.
Julian for example wrote:
God is the maker of all things.
God is everything that is good,
and the goodness which is there in all things is God.
Hildegard wrote:
Glance at the sun
See the moon and stars
Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings
What delight God gives us with all these things.
We are to work with creation, for without it we cannot survive for creation, for all of creation needs our loving help.,
We are to work
This kind of understanding is referred to as Creation Centered Spirituality which in our time has been brought to the attention of many believers by Matthew Fox, a teacher, theologian, author, historian and pastor.
He calls us to recognize creation as the Original Blessing of God. celebrating
- the beauty of the fall leaves
- the magic of a starlit night
- the wonder of flowers
- the variety of creatures and critters
We need to be involved in ministry with creation, to recognize where there is distress and work to alleviate it, to be helpful and good stewards. Just like our ministry with one another, we will not all do the same thing. We have to match a cause to our time, talent and treasure.
We have to discover our passion for creation. And find our ministry and act with compassion.
The Dalai Lama says:
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion—if you want to be happy, practice compassion
To extend this idea to creation if we want creation to be happy, practice compassion, if we want to be happy practice compassion.