Animal Sunday

This Sunday in our Season of Creation is Animal Sunday – a day to take note of the wonderful web of animal life in which we are enmeshed and sustained. Too often animals are seen and treated simply as resources for economic growth.

Today’s readings invite us to realise what St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi realised, that animals of all sizes are more than resources to use as we see fit. They are our brothers and sisters. They, like us, are not simply receivers of God’s goodness but are actively doing God’s ongoing work of creating and giving life by their very existence. This Sunday we are offered an opportunity to consider the effect our actions and climate change are having on our brothers and sisters and that web of life.

In light of that I wonder in what ways our longing for the coming of God’s justice and peace includes a world where ALL living creatures, great and small, have the resources to experience fullness of life. Is this an example of where we need to enter into a bigger mind? I wonder in what ways we honour our brothers and sisters in our actions and attitudes and how we might live in ways that allows them to continue doing God’s work as God intended?