Saturday, April 22 will be Earth Day. Sometimes people ask, ”What can I do to respect, protect and nurture the Earth?” Each one of us needs to find our own answers and do our own search. In our local paper, one environmentalist wrote a column about plastics, that huge umbrella of manufactured materials that can be made into so many of the products we use so liberally. We see bags, bottles, jugs, clamshell containers, stretch wrap, disposable cutlery, stir sticks, straws and so on. Plastics are made of very long and strong chains of carbon atoms; this makes them last a long time. Plastics have a very large carbon footprint; it takes huge amounts of petroleum to make just the plastic water bottles so commonly purchased and tossed away. Plastics pollute our land and our water bodies. Plastics may have additives that cause health problems. We could all make an effort to learn the plastic recycling symbols: Number 4 plastics (bread bags, grocery bags and milk bags) can be recycled into new products; Number 7 plastics belong to a catch-all class that is diverse and essentially unrecyclable. We could make choices about our use of and dependence on plastics.
Associate Maria is involved in many ministries in her parish, Sacred Heart/Immaculate Heart of Mary.
As I was reading the gospel for Palm Sunday, I was struck by such contrasts from welcoming and cheering to violence – betrayal, deceit, injustice and death. As a mother I felt the anguish that Mary must have felt to witness her son’s pain and suffering. And there is a part of me that is in awe of Jesus obedience to his Father – to die on the cross for us.
Resurrection is a hard sell. One would think it would be easier than suffering and crucifixion, but ironically it isn’t. No one alive today is unaware of the ordeal of suffering and pain: in themselves, in the people they love, in their own cities and countries. Unfortunately, we are also acutely aware of the sufferings of people around the world through the media. We can see on our televisions and media devices the horror as it unfolds from natural disasters and from evil inflicted by others. We can see the effects of torture and death on the evening news as clearly as if we stood on Calvary looking up at the Son of God as he was dying by the hands of those who hated him.