An Ecological Examination of Conscience
Francis of Assisi called animals “Sister” and “Brother” and viewed humans as one part of a wider family of creation. Franciscan writers Ilia Delio, Keith Douglass Warner, and Pamela Wood recommend adapting a historic Christian practice of “examination of conscience” to focus on how we have harmed or helped our relationships with the Earth:
To prepare to do an ecological examination of conscience, take a few minutes to quiet yourself and enter into a state of prayer. Going back over your day or week, ask yourself the following questions:
Is my whole life centered on God’s overflowing love in my life, revealed through Jesus and through all of creation? . . .
Do I accept with a grateful heart the gifts of God’s goodness and diversity in creation? . . .
Do I pray for the forgiveness of sins between humans and the created world, and for the healing and reconciliation of our broken relationship with creation? . . .
Have I used my God-given gifts to honor and protect the diverse, interdependent, fragile nature of all life and to preserve it for all future beings? . . .
Have I stolen from or damaged the habitat of other creatures by wasting or consuming more than I need? . . .
Do I seek to eliminate from the world whatever keeps all creatures from their full development intended by their Creator: pollution, greed, overconsumption, loss of habitat, disease, war, extinction of species, oppressive laws and structures? . . .
Have I encouraged others to take care for creation seriously? . . .
After spending time with these questions, hold in your mind and heart the ways in which you have lived in disharmony with creation. . . .
Offer these mistakes up to God and ask for the strength and the wisdom to learn to live with integrity within the web of creation.
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Source: Ilia Delio, Keith Douglass Warner, and Pamela Wood, Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2008), 100–101.
