AN INTEGRAL EUCHARISTIC ECOLOGY
Keywords:
Action, Contemplation, Eucharist, Integral Ecology, Laudato Si, Real Presence, Sacrament, TransubstantiationAbstract
In the context of Laudato Sí, this article considers the Eucharist in relationship to the theory and practice of integral ecology. It brings together what is too often kept apart: the world and history, matter and spirit, nature and grace, faith and imagination, in the real presence of Jesus in this sacrament, just as the “transubstantiation” anticipates the universal transformation of all things in Christ. The Eucharist is the ever-renewable resource in a world of non-renewable resources as it nourishes the kind of contemplative action required at this criticalmoment in history.
References
John D. Zizioulas, The Eucharistic Communion and the World, Luke Ben Tallon, ed., London: T&T Clark, 2011, 128-131; 135-140; 151-154.
Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home IMay 24, Pentecost Sunday, 20I5), Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015, 235.
Francis J. Moloney, SDB, The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina Vol. 4, Daniel Harington, SJ, ed., Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998, especially 372-378.
Pope Francis cites Pope Benedict XVI’s “Homily for the Mass of Corpus Domini“(June 15, 2006), AAS 98 (2006) 513.
David S. Toolan, SJ, “Nature is an Heraclitean Fire. Reflections on Cosmology in an Ecological Age,” Studies in the Spirituality of the Jesuits 23, 5 (November 1991;whole issue) 35-43.
Beatrice Bruteau, “Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological Spirituality,” Cross Currents (Winter 1990) 501.
Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land, North Point Press: San Francisco, 1981, 281.
