As you make use of these resources personally or in small groups, please send us feedback and stories on how they have helped you become more attentive to bringing forth a new and renewed creation! Here is one story we received as feedback: 

Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
St. Louis, MO

Twenty three Sisters gathered at their offices in St. Louis, Missouri on Monday evening of Holy Week for a viewing of the film “Earth and the American Dream”. The film vividly portrays the cost that Earth has borne over five centuries for those in pursuit of the American dream. As we were in the midst of Holy Week reflection on the Passion of Jesus, coming face to face with the Passion of Earth through this film helped us make real, felt connections between Creator and Creation.

We continued our reflection on Wednesday of Holy Week with this theme as part of our weekly “Mindful Wednesdays” message sent out to all our Sisters:

Dear Sisters,

Happy Holy Week!

As we ponder the Paschal Mystery especially this week, we call to awareness Jesus’ last hours. During chapters 13-17 of John’s Gospel we find Jesus sharing some inspiring words and prayers with those gathered at the Last Supper. Jesus’ great prayer on that first Holy Thursday is at John 17:21: “that they may all be one.”

Sisters, who is the “all” in Jesus’ prayer? 

Jesus was profoundly disturbed whenever he witnessed a lack of one-ness.
--He wept over Jerusalem. 
--He corrected the disciples for pushing away the children. 
--He turned over the tables of the money-changers.

Perhaps, reading the signs of today’s ecological times, we can take the “all” in Jesus’ prayer to mean just that:  ALL… Earth and all its creatures…the Cosmos…the entirety of God’s Creation!  May they all be one!

We know from the ecological and other sciences that all is one!—it’s just that especially we western humans don’t live out of that worldview—and this has had deadly consequences.

Let we who profess to follow Jesus die to our divisions and dualistic thinking and rise to a renewed lifestyle that rejoices in the one-ness of what God has made!