5 June, World Environment day
Today, on the eve of the feast of St. Marcellin, we find ourselves celebrating World Environment Day. It is a day that has been celebrated since 1974, after the UN established it with the aim of helping to raise awareness of the need to turn our eyes towards the environment. To develop it, the United Nations presents a series of specific objectives. Since that date, more and more activities have been carried out and thousands of people around the world have been made aware of them.
We too, Marists of Champagnat, have been growing in ecological awareness. Personally, we allow ourselves to be touched by the reality of our world today. As communities and as an Institution, we also want to respond to the emerging needs, where the concern and the care of our common home are being assumed in all the corners of the world. Small actions and big projects are being developed, together with training and educational awareness activities.
The XXII General Chapter of the Marist Brothers, in its third call, reminded us of the need to promote the culture of ecology, as well as inviting us to awaken an ecological awareness that commits us to the care of our common home.
Since the creation of the Bureau of Solidarity last September 2019, the General Council wanted the care of our world to be also present among the priorities of the Institute, and so it decided to include a section on “Ecology” within this structure. We say that Solidarity speaks to us of the attention and care of those who are in need. And yes, our common home is also in need. In this way, the fact that the Marist Ecology Department is within the Bureau of Solidarity makes complete sense.
In this health crisis that we are experiencing in many countries of the world, we are discovering more clearly that the whole world is one, that life does not understand borders, that the human being is in close relationship with those around him and with what surrounds him. Moreover, we are all increasingly aware that caring for the world has a special impact on those who are most in need. This is what Pope Francis often repeats to us in his writings and homilies: “to what extent concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and inner peace are inseparable” (LS 10).
Celebrating this “World Environment Day” reminds us of our commitment, as Marists of Champagnat, to nature and to the poor. Today, we also invite you, as a private person, and your community and family, to continue to commit yourself in this effort as a global family to be bridge builders. Bridges that bring us closer to those in need: people and nature.
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Br. Ángel Diego – Director of the Secretariat of Solidarity