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The earth and its language
As a true mother, the earth, lavishes not only its material wealth (food and protection), but also educates its children to speak, to communicate and to express concepts and feelings, moulding through their mind and heart the symbols they use. And so the person succeeds in conceptualising, to symbolize and learns the art of a language, that allows that person to express through abstract concepts terrestrial elements: the olive and the dove become symbols of peace, the snake of trap and danger, wheat of fertility, wine of happiness and joy, water of purification, the rock of fortitude and stability, the sky and the sun symbols of God.
The earth with its seasons has deeply marked the structuring of time, for which man has learned to organize life and work in harmony with the rhythms of nature. The marvellous calendar of the celebrations and the feasts was born out of it, tied to the seasons of the earth: the sowing, the reaping, and the harvesting of the fruits, the hunting time. Often all it takes is studying the calendar of a people to discover the deep bond between the earth and the individual and social life.
The Christian Faith and the Catholic liturgical cycle, is not divorced from the natural world. Each day at morning and evening, the Prayer of the Church reminds us that sunrise and sunset are sacred moments. The liturgical calendar is linked to the cycle of the seasons, at least, in the northern hemisphere. Even the date of Easter, the most important feast celebrating the memory of the passion death and resurrection of Jesus, is fixed by the cycles of the moon. Daily, monthly and yearly the Church invites people to pause and to enter into these sacred moments in order to give thanks and praise to God for his goodness to us. The sacraments, too, all draw upon elements of the natural world. We use bread, water, fire, oil, light and darkness in our celebrations. Next time at Mass, when we listen to this words: "Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made… we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands…" let us commit ourselves to transform this earth into a better place to be lived in for all its creatures.