I just about coughed out my coffee while chatting with a friend and lifelong Franciscan when I heard her casually mention how one-dimensional Saint Francis of Assisi had become—reduced to the “patron saint of the birdbath.” So much beauty, wonder, and respect for all of creation is lost when Saint Francis is relegated to the backyard, she mused.
Her words echo through my mind each time I notice birds gathered around feeders with Saint Francis in tow, or today as we celebrate Earth Day and the patron of the environment.
I mean no disrespect to Saint Francis, our patron and icon of faithful stewardship, but even the Franciscan community whom I have come to adore, yearns for a deeper understanding and theology of our particular calling to be good stewards of creation. Saint Francis’ lived example and composed Canticle of Creation are stunning, and his is not the lone voice of our Tradition inviting us to dig a little deeper and to live lives marked by simplicity and honor for our fellow creatures of all kinds.
There are few topics in the wealth of the Church’s teachings that are written about more beautifully in Scripture and Tradition than the gift of creation and the call to be good stewards in every way—perhaps especially regarding the physical places where we live. Interestingly, in my nearly forty years, I have never heard a homily on the matter. Not once.
We talk frequently about time, talent, and treasure as the gifts we have been given to share, and as such are called to steward well. How gifts that are freely received need to be held with open hands. And it has led me to wonder why we so seldom make the leap to stewardship of the primary gift we have been given: our home.
As we honor our created world on Earth Day today, we have an important opportunity as people of faith to draw upon the richness of our Tradition, and, in doing so, we ourselves will grow. Rather than recycle (pun intended) the same message we have used every other year, I wonder how it might look if we got familiar with our roots a bit, and leaned into the beautiful theology of stewardship we have at our fingertips, and what far-reaching effects that could have.
Let us look at what our Tradition teaches us about our world and role in it:
“The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God.” // Saint John of Damascus (source)
“Humankind is called to co-create so that we might cultivate the earthly, and thereby create the heavenly.” // Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Abbess & Doctor of the Church
“Every creature is a glittering, glistening mirror of divinity.” // Saint Hildegard of Bingen (more by Saint Hildegard)
"The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. [ . . . ] Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other." // Pope Benedict XVI (Charity in Truth [Caritas in Veritate], § 48, 51)
“I don't want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.” // Sister Dorothy Stang, a School Sister of Notre Dame de Namur from Ohio. (She became a martyr in 2005, killed by a hired gunman for her work among the poor living in the Amazon, where she advocated for their home and human rights against wealthy area loggers and landowners.)
Sister Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho, was also martyred for her work defending the human rights of Indigenous people in Brazil in 1985.
"Changes in lifestyle based on traditional moral virtues can ease the way to a sustainable and equitable world economy in which sacrifice will no longer be an unpopular concept. For many of us, a life less focused on material gain may remind us that we are more than what we have. Rejecting the false promises of excessive or conspicuous consumption can even allow more time for family, friends, and civic responsibilities. A renewed sense of sacrifice and restraint could make an essential contribution to addressing global climate change." // United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good)
"Equally worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and which is closely connected to it. In his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way. [ . . . ] Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him." // Pope Saint John Paul II (On the Hundredth Year [Centesimus Annus], § 37)
“Let the earth bless the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever.
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Everything growing on earth, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
You springs, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
You sea monsters and all water creatures, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.
All you mortals, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever.” // Daniel 3:74-82
"A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. [ . . . ] Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society." // Pope Francis (On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si'], § 49, 91)
All of these quotations and examples are just a small glimpse into the vast and beautiful collection of sources from martyrs, bishops, Saints, prophets, and popes, who have written throughout the ages. I hope you will consider it as a timely invitation to more fully embrace the practice of good stewardship as a mark of our embodied faith.
Katie Cassady is a regular contributor to the BIS blog. She is a wife and mom to three little girls in Denver, CO. Steeped in theological reflection, beekeeping and motherhood, she is appreciative of any and all wisdom she can glean from those living intentional lives of faith. Find out more about her here. Read all of Katie's posts here.
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