{"id":1271,"date":"2019-12-27T05:49:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T04:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2019-12-27T05:49:44","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T04:49:44","slug":"everything-is-connected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/everything-is-connected\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Everything is connected\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The weekend in Rome organised by the Conference of Friars Minor of Italy (COMPI) starting on the 29th<\/sup> of November, 2019 in the The Pontifical University \u2018Antonianum\u2019 was based on Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical \u2018Laudato S\u00ed\u2019, giving life to St Francis\u2019 views of beauty, fraternity with all of creation and Earth being our mother and sister. The weekend was full of input sessions and discussions on integral ecology where St Francis views were seen as solutions to today\u2019s challenges of environmental degradation, decrease in the quality of life, increase in poverty, increase in the refugee population and immigration through creating healthy human societies that promote beauty, cultural diversity, dignity and justice for all across generations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nweekend was for youths who, in their own way, all are potential seeds that can make\na difference and bring about positive change in their workplace, their home and\ntheir locality. The format of the weekend was partly theoretical and partly experiencial\nin the form of visits to organisations that are helping the poor and support the environment. The weekend workshop challenged the\nparticipants\u2019 values and persective for a shift in paradigm, a deep change in\nthe way we live through an increase in awareness of the interconnectedness of\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\nof the perspectives that was challenged was the anthropological. The way modern\nman has lived has given rise to an increase in individualism, self sufficiency,\ngender issues and disconnectedness from nature. The way education and modern\nculture has been developing created a gap between humanity and nature. By\nliving the perspective that man is at the centre of creation, man\u2019s\nrelationship with nature has been distorted and has put him in a position to\ncontrol creation, which resulted in man misusing and destroying natural\nresources, and simplifying the relation with nature to that of consumerism and\nmarket goods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nchallenge posed was a theological one. Apart from the destruction of the\nrelation of man with nature, western modern man has also a distorted way of\nperceiving God. Our present ecological crisis will get worse if we do not\nreject the axiom that nature has no reason for existence other than that to\nserve man. Therefore the perspective challenge consists of understanding that\nif we are to love one another, we are also to love and take care of what God\ncreated, since taking care of nature – our common home – is taking care of others.\nA question was also posed as to why protect indinenous people and the Amazon in\nparticular. Given that the Amazon supports global common life including the\nquality of air we all breath and the amount of fresh water on our planet, then it\nis up to all of us to protect and support this region. The indigenous people\u2019s\nculture respects the Amazon and nature in general, and given that modern man\nhas a capitalist mindset where nature is an object of manipulation and is used\nto accumulate material wealth, mediation between the two cultures becomes\nimportant for understanding the need of returning to the right mindset and have\nhumanity as part of and not the centre of creation. This is the change in\nparadigm that modern man has to go through to be able to solve global issues. Unlike\nglobalised, international companies that promote the \u2018colonialist way of\ncreating economies\u2019 (\u2018thinking globally and acting locally\u2019), integral ecology\nchallenges us to start \u2018thinking locally and acting globally\u2019. In this new\nparadigm, local communities such as indigenous tribes in the Amazon whose\nlifestyle embraces the care of nature, can be respected and we can also learn\nfrom them to apply their knowledge and wisdom in order to address and act upon global\nissues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just\nlike God created and is the father of everything, thus making us humans brothers\nand sisters with every other human and creature on earth, \u2018Madre terra\u2019 is the\nmother figure, just like Mary the mother of Jesus. She is a mother of all, and a representation of the importance of the\nfeminine for nurturing and upholding humanity, an idea that has been in the\npast shunned out in the post modern and modern society.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through\ndiscussions and experiential learning in various social organisations, integral ecology was presented not as one option but the only option and path humanity must thread upon\nin order to have healthy political and\neconomic systems supported by the right spiritual\ninsight that integrated all cultures and created a balance between man, culture\nand the environment. The weekend workshop was an enriching experience on all\nlevels, also making one realise that the beauty, joy and happiness that was\nshared in the group and the places visited are also a requirement for humanity\nto realise that the sacredness of life is in time, in the moment.  A big thanks to the franciscan friars of Italy for\ninviting us over to this great initiative, for which we were also accompanied\nby Fr Loreto Zerafa OFM and Fr Mark Ciantar OFM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nexperiential part of the weekend seminar included visits to social\norganisations such as \u2018Emmaus\u2019,  where environmental and social needs are met\nby recycling unwanted material such as paintings, furniture and jewellery for\nreuse. A\nvisit to \u2018Comunit\u00e0 Sant\u2019Egidio\u2019 highlighted the fundamental importance of\ncultivating genuine friendship relationships with the excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Faith Azzopardi, Leander Duca, Malta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weekend in Rome organised by the Conference of Friars Minor of Italy (COMPI) starting on the 29th of November, 2019 in the The Pontifical… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jpic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/F_Everythingisconnected.jpg?fit=960%2C490&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paH0LY-kv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1273,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions\/1273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofm.mt\/ofmmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}