The third edition of the "Mother Earth, Sisters Stars" Festival was held in Umbria from the 1st- to the 10th September 2023, dedicated to integral ecology, scientific research, dialogue between science and faith within the broader context of the Season of Creation 2023.
Amongst the initiatives, on the 9th September was a Study Day organized by the Pontifical Antonianum University dedicated to the theme "Energy and climate", which was also attended by Br. Massimo Fusarelli, Minister General of the OFM and Grand Chancellor of the PUA, who in his speech focused on the Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis.
Br. Massimo recalled that the Canticle was written when the Seraphic father had almost completely lost his sight and that therefore his description of creation was the fruit of his experience of faith. "Francis recognizes everything as a gift received and to be returned - said the Minister General - certainly not to appropriate it and become its masters, its rulers, but to serve it. Francis is clear that he wanted to be a brother with and amongst creatures and a younger brother, not the first to impose himself. [...] He interweaves men and creatures in the one plan of God. Without such a plan we do not understand the other and vice versa".
The message that flows from the Canticle therefore becomes very timely in the analysis of Br. Massimo. "Francis recognized creation as an immense living organism, inhabited and crossed by finality towards its fullness, where man and creatures find their place and their function.
In the Canticle Francis not only sings of the Lord as the One from whom everything flows and to whom everything returns, but also as the One whom we learn to love and serve through reality, through the world, through creatures, with them and for them. [...]
In the development and journey of history, to-day we have one more sheet to enter into this great symphony that is the Canticle and, in it, must be Francis' sensitivity regarding creation".
Read the full text in (Italian)
Read more: Season of Creation
