Liturgy for Interdependence - Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community - Albany NY. All are welcome to this community where hospitality is our trademark. www.inclusivecatholiccommunity-nycr.org

Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community Celebrates Liturgy of Interdependence
Dennis McDonald and Deven Horne lead the Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community in a liturgical celebration of interdependence.

Statement of Faith: Commitment to all of Creation:

 All: Recognizing that the earth is a gift from our gracious God, and that we are called to cherish, nurture and provide loving stewardship of earth’s recourses, and recognizing that life itself is a gift, and a call to responsibility, joy and celebration, today I enter into a covenant with the Holy One, for my own sake, and for those I love, and for the well-being of the human family.

I commit myself to join with others in reshaping institutions in order to bring about a more just global society, in which each person has access to the resources needed for their physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth. 

I commit myself to vote for and support those political candidates who demonstrate an authentic concern for the environment.

 I commit myself to occupational accountability: I will seek to avoid the creation of products which cause harm to others. commit myself to personal renewal through prayer, meditation and study.

I commit myself to participation in a community of faith.

Amen. Let it be so!I affirm the health of my body, and commit myself to its proper nourishment and physical well-being.

 I commit myself to personal renewal through prayer, meditation and study.

I commit myself to participation in a community of faith.

Amen. Let it be so!

A reading from Viriditas and Veritas: The Ecological Prophets Hildegard of Bingen and
Miriam Therese MacGillis, OP by Matthew Fox

“Every cosmology represents God in its own particular way, as well as offering a globalizing, integrative, and sacramental understanding of the world,” writes Boff. For Hildegard of Bingen, twelfth century German Benedictine abbess, the universe is like an egg in the womb of God.

Hildegard can be seen as an ecological prophet both in her cosmology and in her assertion that there is a profound and life giving power of lush greenness immanent in all creation,

In the light of the rapid deterioration and degradation of the earth’s wild life, rivers, flora and fauna, Berry, Swimme and MacGillis as their spokesperson, posit that the ecological crisis is necessarily a crisis
of cosmology. It is this crisis with its threats and challenges that has become the passion of Miriam Therese MacGillis. She writes: “Now, more than ever, as we move through the unprecedented dangers and opportunities unleashed in these early years of the 21st century, we’re deeply in need of a transforming vision…A vision that opens the future up to hope.”5 The new universe story provides that transforming vision.

As a so-called “green sister” MacGillis’ environmental concerns are those of many religious women, according to McFarland Taylor. Telling the story of a cosmology that will provide a meaningful sense of the nature of the universe, companion planting.

Hildegard calls it “greening love” that “hastens to the aid of all. With the passion of heavenly yearning, people who breathe this dew produce rich fruit.” Viriditas has a moral aspect reflected in the relationships of men and women:

 The earth grants sprouting fecundity according to the nature of human beings, depending on the quality and direction of their lives and actions. Men and women are the light-green heart of the living fullness of nature. A direct connection exists between the heart of a person and all the elements of the cosmos. They effect together that which has been decided in human hearts (1998:72).

These are the inspired words of Matthew Fox.

A reading from Ancestral Grace by Diarmuid O’Murchu
The vision of the kingdom is postulated on a worldview of radical inclusiveness and egalitarianism. Nothing is excluded, particularly the surrounding creation from which we inherit the primary paradigms based on differences and distinctions. We’re challenged to reclaim what we share in common (particularly the one earth), rather than clinging on to what separates and divides us.

And it is not by accident that many of the parables relate to the land, its usufruct (the right of using and enjoying all the advantages and profits of the property of another without altering or damaging the substance), and the way landowners treat those who worked on the land. Here as in the Covenant of the Hebrew Scriptures, the land is a representative icon of the ever nourishing and sustaining God, with echoes of the key role also attributed to the Great Earth Mother Goddess.

By the making of the New Reign of God the heart and core of his mission, Jesus was not merely activating a renewal program for the Jewish religion, nor was he consciously trying to invent a new religion. No, his dream, as John’s Gospel illustrates, was to call humans to a radical realignment with the God at the heart of creation as a cosmic-planetary organism. It was an awakening call, ever old and ever to embrace afresh, in radical love, justice, and liberation. Beyond all human, social, and political ideologies, Jesus brought a dream of a new heaven and new earth. As a Christian people, we still have not caught up with that visionary cosmic Jesus.

These are the inspired words of Diarmuid O’Murchu

A reading from the Gospel according to Matthew
"That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life--whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Mt 6:25
These are the inspired words from the Gospel of Matthew