Tag Archives: Care of the Earth

There can be something quite poignant and breathtaking about the hues, colours and transient light of autumn days.  The burnished gold to brown and drop, that signals the ‘turning of the leaf’.  These moments of precious recognition, acknowledgement and leave-taking can open up our being to something other than ourselves; the realisation that we are kin to everything. I was ...

“How do we ‘carry Nano’s Lantern’ … and ‘hear the cry of the Earth and those kept poor’ ”? Today, more than ever before, we need people like Nano Nagle*.  We need people of courage who are prepared, if necessary, to ‘spend themselves’ for love of the poor and of the planet. This is what it means to carry ‘Nano’s ...

The world’s chocolate companies have continually missed deadlines to uproot child labour from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Next year, they face another target date and, industry officials indicate, they probably will miss that, too. About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where, according to a 2015 U.S. Labour Department report. More ...

St. Francis of Assisi whose feast day it is today (4th October) believed that everything in the natural world was a gift from God and deserved to be appreciated and valued.  Because of this, Francis in his ‘Canticle of the Sun’  refers to the sun, wind, air, and fire as his brothers, and to the moon, stars, earth, water, and death ...

In December 2016, President Michael D. Higgins announced that sculptor Rachel Joynt had won the prestigious competition to create a 1916 themed sculpture for Áras an Uachtaráin. The winning design, was\entitled ‘Dearcán na nDaoine / People’s Acorn’ and used the symbolism of an acorn’s journey from small seed to majestic oak, to commemorate the past events of the 1916 Rising ...

Like very many others, I have followed the daily world media reports on the recent fourteen day journey of Greta Thunberg the sixteen year old Climate Activist from Sweden as she took on the gruelling challenge of sailing to New York for the UN Climate Action Summit in September.  I have been mesmerised by someone so young courageously taking up ...

Every time of year and season has its beauty if we have the ‘eyes’ to see. However, more often than not, that beauty beckons ‘heart to heart’, without us having to do anything at all, other than just be present to it.  This experience  can help  confirm in us a realisation of  ‘what beauty is for’.  The poet Mary Oliver ...

Pope Francis has established the 1st September as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, encouraging the Catholic community around the world to pray for our common home. The day is inspired by Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical Laudato Si, which calls on “every person living on this planet” to care for our shared Earth.  He calls us ...

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said in his message, “The world is indebted to the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the other A-bombed city, for their courage and moral leadership in reminding us all about the human cost of nuclear war.” Hiroshima marked the 74th anniversary of its atomic bombing by the United States on Tuesday 6th August, with ...

We are being asked to wake up to the environmental and human impacts of the fashion industry – one of the most polluting industries in the world – in the same way as people did when David Attenborough showed the turtle dying from too much plastic in its belly in 2017.  Blue Fashion for a Blue Planet. Here are just ...