My earliest memories are of living in an apartment with my parents in a row house on Pittsburgh’s South Side, a stone’s throw from the mills that had attracted generations of immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. For a child, South Side was urban living at its best. We could walk to visit my grandparents and the homes of most of my aunts, uncles and cousins. Moreover, anything that we needed could be found on Carson Street, the community’s main artery. You can still buy the best soft pretzels in the world baked just around the corner from my old home.
What was more difficult to find, however, was a blade of grass. There were occasional window boxes with red and white petunias vaguely reminiscent of the Polish flag, but virtually no one had a lawn. When my father eventually purchased a car and we took the bold step of moving 15 minutes away to another neighborhood within the city limits (my dad was the only one of the eight children in his family to leave the South Side), my aunts and uncles told my cousins that we were moving to the country. While there wasn’t a cow, chicken or ear of corn in the new neighborhood, there were indeed lawns and birds and rabbits (picture the streets of Frogtown).
Archbishop Bernard Hebda
Even more importantly, there were “the woods” — an overgrown portion of the neighborhood that could not be developed because of mine subsidence. We would pack lunches and go exploring, and I learned about salamanders, opossums and poison ivy. Once I realized that the older boys were making up their accounts of bears, snakes and bandits, the woods became a great place to go and think — and eventually, to pray.
The connection between prayer and the beauty of God’s creation was forged for me at Camp Notre Dame in northern Pennsylvania. It was there that I first heard an owl and a loon, there that I first met a seminarian (all the counselors were studying for the Diocese of Erie), and there amid the pines that I first served holy Mass. That convergence left an indelible imprint on me as I realized that our amazing God wanted us to recognize him in his handiwork, whether it be in the beauty of a sunset, or the majesty of the Pennsylvania hardwoods, or the potential of an acorn. I was hooked. I caught a glimpse for the first time of Jesus’ rationale for escaping so often to the hills to pray: Where better to feel the Father’s love?
In his encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” Pope Francis recalled that his namesake, the Poverello of Assisi, “invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness.” Rather than being “a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise” (LS n. 12). In this Land of 10,000 Lakes, we are blessed to have so many opportunities for that contemplation — and we don’t even have to travel all the way to the North Shore. It only takes me a few minutes to escape from the office to Lake Phalen or Lake Gervais to pray mid-day prayer or evening prayer, and to be reminded that we have a God who has a loving and beautiful plan for this world.
I recently had the opportunity to celebrate Mass in Wisconsin for a group of young campers from our archdiocese. I was there on their last day at camp, and was blessed to be able to listen in on their testimonies. It was clear that in the midst of God’s creation they had experienced the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation in powerful new ways. How wonderful that the Lord who first called Peter, Andrew, James and John on the shores of Lake Gennesaret hadn’t lost his touch, and was still encountering young hearts and transforming lives, albeit on Hoinville Lake. Not surprisingly, I was transported back to my own experience at Camp Notre Dame and gave thanks that the Lord continues to provide us in nature with so many reminders of his love that intensify our experience of his goodness.
In just a few weeks, on Sept. 1, the Church will be once again celebrating the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us that we cannot ignore our obligation to care for what God has created. That solicitude is one of the ways that we can express our gratitude for the gift of God’s love as revealed in his creation. In his message for this year’s celebration, Pope Francis writes in particular: “Let us continue to grow in the awareness that we all live in a common home as members of a single family. Let us all rejoice that our loving Creator sustains our humble efforts to care for the earth, which is also God’s home where his Word “became flesh and lived among us” (Jn 1:14) and which is constantly being renewed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Armed with that conviction, may our collaborative efforts on behalf of our common home, as well as our united prayer on Sept.1, help us to rejoice always in what Pope Francis has termed “creation’s sweet song of life and hope.”
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