Ecospiritual Reflections Part II

On Tuesday, when I was still feeling spiritually buoyed by my trip to Assisi, our group visited the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. This was not part of the Il Centro Pro Unione’s program but was a special excursion organized by our professor Mike Attridge, who went out of his way, pulling an untold number of strings to organize extra experiential learning occasions for us. I was especially delighted to be able to visit this dicastery because among its responsibilities is the promotion of the care of Creation, integral ecology and the teachings of Laudato Si’. In terms of the Catholic Church’s embrace of ecological spirituality, thought and action, this dicastery is where the rubber hits the road! While we were there, I had the appearance of polite academic interest on the outside, but inside I felt like a fan girl who had just been invited backstage at a rock concert. In its care of Creation portfolio, this dicastery is focused on turning Catholic Social Teaching on socio-ecological justice and integral ecology into a reality by creating the mechanisms to help dioceses and parishes turn words into action in ways that best suit their local context. The staff disseminates the Pope’s many messages regarding the environment, creates resources in multiple languages and facilitates conferences, roundtables and workshops. This includes the creation of materials for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation celebrated annually on September 1 and the Season of Creation celebrated ecumenically by many Christian churches every year from September 1 to October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. More information is available on the dicastery’s website. https://www.humandevelopment.va/en/news/2023/pubblicazione-messaggio-papa-francesco-giornata-mondiale-di-preg.html

After the dicastery visit, I returned to the hotel by walking along the Tiber River with two classmates. There is an unexpected serenity down by the river where the noise of the city streets above is magically muffled to nearly imperceptible levels and waterfowl and other creatures move about unperturbed by the human passersby. We marveled at the persistence of nature as we looked at the plants that break through the cement and thrive everywhere along the walls of the river walk.

My ecospiritual recharging continued the next day with an interfaith twist when our Il Centro class had a tour of the Grand Mosque of Rome. This huge, beautiful structure is located in a suburbian area of Rome next to the Villa Ada Savoia, one of Rome’s largest parks. Everything about the mosque is made to help orient our minds towards God’s beauty in creation from the two large palm trees that greet you as you enter the mosque’s gates to the earth and water tones and floral pattern of the carpet on the mosque’s floor. There are no depictions of humans or animals in Muslim worship spaces, but the architecture of this magnificent building is suggestive of a forest with its tree shaped pillars inside the mosque and along the grand colonnade that runs outside the building. Here there are also fountains and cascading water that only flow during Friday prayers and other important worship days, no doubt in a nod to water conservation efforts that are so important after the devasting drought that hit Italy last summer. Another unintended feature of the mosque that struck me quite profoundly was that I could hear the loud, distinctive sound of cicadas ringing out constantly. Their sound reminded me of Assisi and St. Francis, who along with being the patron saint of ecology, was a Christian emissary of peace to the Muslim world and an early practitioner of interreligious dialogue. In this full circle moment as I stood in Rome’s Grand Mosque, I was reminded that a reverent attitude towards God’s creation is a way toward interreligious harmony and a means by which together people of faith can work to heal the Earth and one another.

by Rosemary