On Wednes­day, April 22, we will ob­serve In­ter­na­tion­al Moth­er Earth Day; a day to thank God for the sa­cred gift of our plan­et; to raise aware­ness about our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect our plan­et and pro­mote en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

I fol­lowed me­dia re­ports of the re­cent jour­ney of the 4 As­tro­nauts on Artemis 2 —the first crewed mis­sion be­yond Earth’s or­bit since Apol­lo 17 in 1972. The words of as­tro­naut Christi­na Koch are worth not­ing.

She said: “The thing that changed for me look­ing back at Earth was that I found my­self notic­ing not on­ly the beau­ty of the Earth, but how much black­ness there was around it, and how it just made it even more spe­cial. It tru­ly em­pha­sised how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every sin­gle per­son on plan­et Earth alive. We evolved on the same plan­et, we have some shared things about how we love and live that are just uni­ver­sal, and the spe­cial­ness and pre­cious­ness of that re­al­ly is em­pha­sised when you no­tice how much else there is around it.”

In the book of Gen­e­sis, we read that God looked up­on His Cre­ation and found it to be good. He en­trust­ed us with stew­ard­ship over His Cre­ation. How­ev­er, in many ways, we con­tin­ue to fail in our du­ty as stew­ards. In 1990, Pope St John Paul II re­mind­ed us that “the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis is a moral is­sue.” Con­stant ex­ploita­tion and de­struc­tion of the earth and its re­sources put us all at risk and “be­tray the gift of cre­ation” (Re­new­ing the Earth, US Bish­ops).

In his homi­ly at his In­au­gur­al Mass, 2005, Pope Bene­dict XVI warned that: “Our mis­treat­ment of the nat­ur­al world di­min­ish­es our own dig­ni­ty and sa­cred­ness, not on­ly be­cause we are de­stroy­ing re­sources that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of hu­mans need, but be­cause we are en­gag­ing in ac­tions that con­tra­dict what it means to be hu­man.

Our tra­di­tion calls us to pro­tect the life and dig­ni­ty of the hu­man per­son, and it is in­creas­ing­ly clear that this task can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from the care and de­fence of all cre­ation.”

In his 2015 en­cycli­cal, Lauda­to Si’, on care for our com­mon home, Pope Fran­cis chal­lenged us to con­sid­er the kind of world we want to leave to those who come af­ter us: “Cre­ation is not a prop­er­ty, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the prop­er­ty of on­ly a few: Cre­ation is a gift ... a won­der­ful gift that God has giv­en us, so that we care for it and we use it for the ben­e­fit of all, al­ways with great re­spect and grat­i­tude ... Our plan­et is a moth­er for all of us. We must hand it on to our chil­dren, cared for and im­proved, be­cause it’s a loan they make to us”.

The en­cycli­cal elab­o­rates on the con­cept of “in­te­gral ecol­o­gy,” which em­pha­sis­es the in­ter­con­nect­ed­ness of so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues.

In prepa­ra­tion for this year’s ob­ser­vance, the UN states: “Moth­er Earth is clear­ly urg­ing a call to ac­tion. Na­ture is suf­fer­ing. Oceans fill­ing with plas­tic and turn­ing more acidic. Ex­treme heat, wild­fires and floods have af­fect­ed mil­lions of peo­ple. Cli­mate change, man-made changes to na­ture as well as crimes that dis­rupt bio­di­ver­si­ty, such as de­for­esta­tion, land-use change, in­ten­si­fied agri­cul­ture and live­stock pro­duc­tion or the grow­ing il­le­gal wildlife trade, can ac­cel­er­ate the speed of de­struc­tion of the plan­et ... we need to re­cov­er our ecosys­tems. Ecosys­tems sup­port all life on Earth ...

“The plan­et is los­ing ten mil­lion hectares of forests every year—an area larg­er than Ice­land. A healthy ecosys­tem helps to pro­tect us from dis­eases. Bi­o­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty makes it dif­fi­cult for pathogens to spread rapid­ly. It is es­ti­mat­ed that around one mil­lion an­i­mal and plant species are now threat­ened with ex­tinc­tion.”

Pro­tect­ing Moth­er Earth is every­one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. There are many prac­ti­cal ways in which we can demon­strate our love/care for our beloved plan­et:

1. De­vel­op an en­vi­ron­men­tal spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

2. As­sess our lifestyle and con­sump­tion. Prac­tice these four ‘Rs’ for sus­tain­able liv­ing: Reuse, re­cy­cle, re­duce, re­store.

3. Pre­vent pol­lu­tion and be­come ad­vo­cates for God’s Cre­ation.

4. Pro­mote sound en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment prac­tices eg en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy, wa­ter con­ser­va­tion, waste avoid­ance, com­post­ing, us­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly re­spon­si­ble prod­ucts, and car-pool­ing.

5. En­joy na­ture and live in har­mo­ny with it.

6. Help to pro­mote in­te­gral ecol­o­gy by nur­tur­ing a more car­ing so­ci­ety—love of God, neigh­bour, and Cre­ation.

And “Let us sing as we go. May our strug­gles and our con­cern for this plan­et nev­er take away the joy of our hope.” (Pope Fran­cis, Lauda­to Si’).