We must foster a genuine and affectionate connection to our world before we can effect change within it. Before we can progress to the practical solutions in a way that will be sustainable and transformative, humanity needs an inner conversion—one that recognizes the innate value of the earth and our fundamental connection to all that exists within it and even outside of it.
Unless we learn to weep for the suffering of a bee, we will not understand what it is to weep for the suffering of the earth. What St. Francis’ life can show us is that our actions on behalf of creation may be strengthened when we first experience a radical conversion of the heart—one that, like St. Francis, recognizes the innate value of the small things, the unloved things, and the forgotten things. In this way, his story can invite us to adopt an environmentalism that is motivated by our spiritual convictions and by the love that those convictions must naturally bring to the surface—an environmentalism of the heart.
—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “Loving Creation, Loving God“
by Carie Moore
