Domus

It must be said that some committed and prayerful Christians, with the excuse of realism and pragmatism, tend to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others are passive; they choose not to change their habits and thus become inconsistent. So what they all need is an “ecological conversion,” whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ becomes evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocations to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.

• Pope Francis, Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home

And so we know the world to be our common home, and like any other home we find the most useful observation to concern the family and the occupants of that home. If it is a mess, if there are clothes on the living room floor and dishes in the dresser drawer, we know who is to blame for the chaos of the environment, we know who is at fault. How the occupants treat one another, how they organize their environment, and how the goals they have given themselves, reflecting what is done on a daily basis, speaks of their relationship to one another and to the Divine.

It is what the home actually looks like, not the walls and beams, drywall and color scheme that we notice so easily but the family that shares those walls as a common protection from the forces of nature that could dissolve them, that creates the reality sheltered within. And instead of dissolving and eroding we most usually see the love that a family shares build them up and increase the mystical home as a domestic church. What does the observation of our common home, the earth, reveal? Do our relationships with one another and with our environment speak of a sheltering and nurturing love?

Under heaven, our home is the Church and the world. What does our home look like to the company we invite in? When will Christ knock on the door? God gave us this home; is it managed well, is it being used appropriately, will it be given to the next generation in need of repair or prepared to immediately support them in their mission?

In the preparation of space, especially a place as sacred and mystical as the home, we must consider what God needs in order to be welcomed. In the first chapter of Genesis we observe God intervening in a merky and watery chaos to create an organized space with purpose: to be ordered under God. God creates 3 spaces: the land, the sea, and the sky in Genesis chapter 1. Orders our reality under God’s Divinity and places it in human hands. When humankind falls from grace we see this order fall into chaos, and the Flood narrative gives way to the rest of human history to reveal God’s restoration and mercy.

In chaos the best we can do is collide into one another, but with order we can place our homes in the heart of God. We can deliver this world to the waiting hands of Heaven. But how shall this reality be held together? I am, but briefly, brought back to the Ten Commandments, the Two Great Commandments of Jesus, the Ancient Mosaic Law. When we leave our homes on Sunday morning, with the family packed up, we follow a road to the church. That road is marked by lines, bridges and highways place barriers in the appropriate spots to keep us from colliding with one another and falling to our death. Ravines are marked with guardrails, walkways are well lit. The path is well marked before you to keep you from straying.

God gave us commandments as a path to God’s own self. The rules of the home are no different, and the rules that guide our occupation of this earth are no different. They are not an end in there own being, but are a means to God. Just as the home is a means to manifesting God in our own reality, its purpose is divine. And the same is true with our common home, the earth.

Similar to the creation of our reality God gave the Ancient Covenant people a sacred space that is kept with the purpose of providing a place for God in their own community: the Tent of Meeting, later the Temple at Jerusalem, and with Christ the Church herself. And from the beginning we have shared in our common home, the earth, and as the sacred space has been prepared by God for human management, our common home must be protected from the harm of pollution and profanation so that God is always welcome.

Our Families are the Domestic Church – we contribute to our families Holiness, we occupy a space designed by God, for the divine purposes of keeping God welcome among human kind. Have we preserved our families holiness or have we compromised it? Have we preserved the holiness of our common home, the earth, or have we compromised it? Have we corrupted and profaned it? Is is too late to stop?

And so it is our vocation to care for the home, whether it be the personal home or the common home. This loving-responsibility of course begins in the personal home, the domestic church, the cell of the Body of Christ, but from there it extends outward as we fulfill what it means to be human and made in the image of God. It penetrates the world around us and changes it. Beyond any moral school, Christ approaches us with a willingness and a wanting to change every piece of matter in the Universe to turn towards God. Therefore the effects of our encounter with Christ should be evident in the relationship we have with our environment. Christ approaches us today seeking an “ecological conversion,” to put our home back in order. We have fallen into chaos, the condition of our homes, the condition of our world, the common home, reflects our straying from the path that leads to God.

To whom does it belong? We are much more like tenants under contract than home-owners with the freedom to alter and even destroy. And so to conclude on this brief survey we should consider, once again, the words of Pope Francis:

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, it is 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.

• Pope Francis, General Audience on 21 May 2014