When the trees will sing

When the trees sing again
When we can see a horizon line
I will learn to speak the language of fish
To dive happily into the ocean of words.

We will have to repair our little suffering land
Sow seeds of life among the weed
And just like Cyrano reinventing the verb
Share the sun and the shooting stars.

When dreams whisper a new way of knowing
And that a sincere hope will make us breathe,
When we stop colonizing everything
The slave may finally have no master.

We will have to heal wounds that are still alive
Forgive genocides and military crimes
Building another imaginary wisely
Protect these streams that children chase.

And time has flowed, The ink has dried…
The merry-go-round is extinguished, the merry-go-round disenchanted,
Does your child make our shoes?
You have to be productive, competitive,
it is a long Requiem, a war against ourselves.
Silence mocked
Hassles of the roar
Damaged by dirty and sticky money…
Inequalities are widening and what justice in all this?
Crooked billionaires almost always avoid prison
When the children of exile are parked in camps.
The injustice that triumphs
It is the failure of social progress,
The inequalities that prosper are disrupting the climate a little more each day.
We are the witnesses,
Beaten up by cops who can no longer be the shields that protect our kings.
The end of the world in sight or the dodge of the ostrich…
On our very vague glances the future is absent,
So… We look for our childhood in the eyes of a kid.

When the trees sing again
And that behind their branches we will paint the horizon
From my pen I will invent a new conjugation
To learn to speak the language of birds.

When the human will sing the future
Deserts will become forests
Our ideals will grow without fertilizer
We can finally rebuild everything.

Laudato Si

13. The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Here I want to recognize, encourage and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.^]” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Reflection: What does “loving your neighbor as yourself” mean today in the context of the ecological crisis?

“Love your neighbor as yourself” includes today in fact “Love your distant as yourself”, distant in space, geographically on another continent and at the same time living in the same common house and distant in the time: future generations.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is to ensure that everyone can have access to the earth’s resources which are necessary for them to live, without exhausting those which will be necessary for future generations.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is to give everyone the right to draw on natural resources, to benefit from access to Creation within the limits of available resources.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is to live in such a way that the poor are not prevented from accessing what they need to live: their land, their forest, their mountains (their careers), their air !

“Love your neighbor as yourself” does not mean “Ensure that your neighbor can live as yourself” but to live in such a way that all peoples can live from the resources at their disposal (land, water, housing, food, etc.).

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is to move from a justice of redistribution of a surplus to the logic of not taking more than what is necessary for us to live, because what we take in addition, we take from others about their means of existence (the nearest poor and the most distant poor).

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is to introduce a principle of solidarity, sustainability and ethics into our consumer choices.

Through Mary and with Mary, let us give thanks to the Lord for this project of love that he bears in his heart of a “Kingdom where the table is set, where all peoples are invited”.

Magnificat