“A Part” of but never “Apart” from the World

“A Part” of but never “Apart” from the World
A Way of Looking at the Spirituality of Stewardship
by Joseph Sylvester Pampliega

In a seminar-workshop on the Spirituality of Stewardship (Buhay-Katiwala) last February 13, 2009 held at the Our Lady of the Reparatrix Center, Tagaytay City, attended by over 100 participants from 18 dioceses and 4 Episcopal Commissions, the head of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), our beloved Archbishop, Angel Lagdameo, challenged the secretaries of the Episcopal Commissions to develop a “comprehensive theology of stewardship” as decreed by PCP II.

As stated in Article 31, Section 1 of the PCP II decrees, “The Church, through the initiatives of CBCP, should develop a comprehensive theology of stewardship and, in the light of this theology, should make ecology a special concern of the social action apostolate down to the parochial level, with the end in view of making everyone a true steward of God’s creation.” Following through with this decree, he said, “Each one of us, each one of you, may consider himself/herself as steward,” furthering stressing that as stewards, “one is not the absolute owner or master of himself and possessions, nor the world of nature and of grace…that everything has been received as gift and talent from God.”

The decree of PCP II on Stewardship focuses on ecology, to which Archbishop Lagdameo qualifies as both a “gift” and a “talent” from God. It is from this perspective that we see ourselves – human beings – not merely an “overseer,” who is “apart” from the world but that, we are “a part” of the world. As Larry L. Rasmussen puts it in his book “Earth Community, Earth Ethics,” (2005, 9) “[Ecology] Nature is not what is around us or where we live in, but the reason we are alive at all; nature is the reason each and every society and culture that ever existed did so.” Rasmussen further elaborates that “society and nature [ecology] together – that is, earth – is a community, without an exit.”

Reflecting upon these words, from the challenge of Archbishop Lagdameo and the insights of Rasmussen, I would imagine myself standing at the center of fertile green fields, carpeted by flowers of different kinds and colors, surrounded by a parade of mountains with towering trees covering them, seeing flocks of birds flying back and forth the blue skies, herds or packs of animals playing around, as the wind slowly brushing off my skin, cooling it — this is a view that I am in a “home” (oikos+logos=ecology) and much of it demands from me, being their right, too, to take care of these “gifts” or “talents” (“treasures” that God wanted multiplied like that of the “Parable of the Talents”). This is the meaning of what God commanded us to do, “to subdue the earth,” to be responsible of our “home” for our sake because we are “a part” of it. Their life means our life, too. And come to think of it, it is irreversible; we could not say, “my life” or “our life” means the life of Mother Earth. To morbidly put it, our deaths – collectively - would not mean the death of Mother Earth, but the death of Mother Earth means our death — and this is what Rasmussen has qualified as “a community without an exit;” we will surely go where Mother Earth, our “home,” goes.

To inspire and challenge us all further, he continues, “The Spirituality of Stewardship would then be an overarching value that will provide other related values such as cooperation, co-responsibility, partnership, collaboration, interdependence, solidarity, servanthood and subsidiarity…Through you, individually and collectively, the Philippine Church will be in a state of stewardship…This you will do together with the priests, religious and other lay people and of course, with the bishops, who are the primary stewards in their respective local churches.”
It is from this that, Archbishop Lagdameo said, “we must use them [Earth, Ecology, “home,” Mother Earth, “Kalibutan,” etc.] as grateful, accountable and responsible persons, in accordance with the intention or plan of the Divine Owner, to promote the common good and to establish the reign of God in the hearts of men.”