For the last 40 years, countries around the world have been celebrating Earth Day each April 22. This year, the Catholic Church has made a more intentional commitment to advocating care for the Earth. Pope Benedict XVI has been particularly vocal in calling for Catholics to responsible stewardship of the Earth and its resources:

In nature the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God’s creative activity…The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility toward the poor, toward future generations, and toward humanity as a whole. (Caritatis in Veritate)

The Pope also devoted his message for the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2010, to the Church’s concern for the Earth.

So has the Church become a bunch of "tree-huggers"? Isn’t all this Earth Day stuff a bit too new-agey? Here are three reasons why I think loving and caring for the Earth is a very Catholic discipline and duty:

1. Care for the Earth is care for the Eucharist

God is the Creator "who made heaven and earth" (Psalm 121). The first thing God did was create the world and everything around us. God, in a sense, was the first tree-hugger, for he called all he had made very good. The Earth and all the creatures upon it, under it, and over it are God’s gifts to us. Our response to all God’s gifts is always "thank you"–efharisto–Eucharist.

In the Eucharist, we take the gifts God has given us–grain, grapes, sunlight, fields, knowledge, patience, wisdom, skill–and with the work of our hands make them into bread and wine for the hungry and help and nourishment for the poor. And through the work of the Spirit, these earthly things are transformed into holy gifts for holy people. Love for the Eucharist, then, must be rooted in care for the natural, earthly things we bring to the Eucharistic table. Love for the Body and Blood of Christ must be made authentic by care for everything God has given to us.

2. Care for the Earth is an act of gracious hospitality

God didn’t just make "stuff" so we could have stuff. God made the Earth into a home where human beings and all creatures could thrive. This is essentially an act of gracious hospitality. God made not only room for us; God made a home. So too in our homes. We don’t just surround ourselves with generic, disposable products, thrown away when they are no longer useful. We savor and cherish the things that have meaning for us, the things that are authentic and beautiful. And we honor them even when they have exhausted their practical value–candles burn down; real flowers die–for it is their sacrifice that is grace-filled. We don’t simply get supplies or commodities for our houses. We create a hospitable, comfortable, beautiful, clean, safe place where those we love and those we meet can rest, be renewed, and reach their full potential, even when society says they are "used up."

In the home of the Church, we do the same. We prepare places of worship that aren’t generic; they bear the hand-stamp of the artist, the beauty of authenticity, and the sacrifice of the community. We don’t just decorate a church; we bathe it with holy water, we anoint it with Chrism, we light it with the light of Christ and clothe its altar in baptismal white, and then we feed it with the Body and Blood of Christ. Hospitality is not just about greeting people. It’s about making people feel "at home." Care for the earth isn’t just about having resources or making things nice. It’s about helping everyone thrive and be at home on this planet we share.

3. Care for the Earth unites us to our past and our future

Our entire Christian faith is never just about "now." It’s not about immediate gratification or careless disposal of things no longer useful. We remember the past (anamnesis) in such a way that what we remember God doing for our ancestors is what we understand God to be doing for us now. We remember the future, for what God has done is a foretaste (prolepsis) of what is already happening now around Christ’s heavenly throne with all the saints and angels. And we recall all this now through the grace of the Spirit (epiclesis) whenever we gather in Christ’s name to remember, give thanks, and wait in joyful hope for his coming again.

Care for the earth is a work that roots us to our past. When we begin to connect to a place and the things of nature in that place–the trees, the soil, the water, the air–we are remembering and connecting with our ancestors and the people who touched those trees, walked that land, drank that water, and breathed the same air. Through our care for that place, we become part of that lineage–that communion–of people who were part of that land. And in so doing, we understand more who we are today.

Care for the earth is also a statement of hope in and for the future. We plant seeds for trees we will never see to full stature. We remove trash and waste from water that will flow to other shores. We limit what we expend so that our children’s children will have clean air to breathe. In a way, we become like Moses who prepared a people to enter a land of milk and honey promised not to him but to his descendants.

This Earth Day, let all Christians recall God’s first gift to us. Let us give thanks that God has given all of us a home called Earth. Let us remember our roots and work for the future. With Christ’s Easter promise, let us help bring new life to our own places of the world.

The Archdiocese of Hartford has provided a great resource to help parishes connect the liturgy for Sunday, April 18, 2010, to the observance of Earth Day the following Thursday. Download a free PDF copy of this resource here. For other excellent resources and information on how Catholics can engage others to share in our responsibility for the environment, see the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change Web site. 

And for a look at who our neighbors are on this planet we call home…

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.