Caring for those around us who at times feel desolate and lost is a contribution we can make, day by day, to this living planet
By Chris McDonnell
Oct 2 2023
Much has been written about Laudato si’ – Pope Francis’ encyclical “on care for our common home” – since its publication in 2015.
And many more words will be written and spoken in the coming months as the full import of the text is explored. I will not dwell on the global implications for our common home, but rather I want to explore the theme of desolation for the individual person.
That thought came to mind after recently reading these words from Thomas Merton:
As to your own desolation and loneliness: what can anyone say? It is the desolation of all of us in the presence of death and nothingness, but Christ in us bears it for us: without our being consoled. To accept non-consolation is to mysteriously help others who have more than they can bear.
Everyone has times in their lives when things aren’t going well, either at work, socially, within a marriage or within oneself, times when long-held certainties are questioned and consolations in response are few. To cover them all with the blanket term “desolation” would be an exaggeration, but just once in a while that is an appropriate term. It is then that our hope and trust in our Christian faith is tested and – to use Merton’s phrase – “Christ in us bears it for us”. Recall the motif for the Year of Mercy – Jesus carrying the fallen man.
Caring for the desolate and lost
I wrote these lines a few years back after finding a sheep wandering alone in a country lane:
It had strayed beyond the barbed fence, head down,
to graze the grass verge by the roadside.
Careless of traffic, a single sheep,
carrying a rust-red stain of identity,
had walked away from the field flock.
Slowly it cropped the road edge
unhurried, waiting to be found.
The 20th century, with its major wars and numerous conflicts, brought us face to face with evil in a manner not previously experienced. And in the first few years of this century that process continues apace. Within the greater story of the Middle East and other places of social disturbance, are the lives of families, of disruption and fear.
The suffering of displaced children and their parents on desolation row must not be ignored, for when we read the stories from these war zones, it is all too easy to forget the distraught young ones who don’t understand what it is all about. They are, nonetheless, caught up in the all-pervading trauma.
Gerald Hughes SJ, who died in 2014, had a phrase, “Think globally, act locally”. That is the attitude we should take if the Gospel message of Laudato si’ is to be implemented by nations as well as in our own lives. Caring for those around us who at times feel desolate and lost is a contribution we can make, day by day, to this living planet. – La Croix International.
Chris McDonnell is a retired headteacher from England and a regular contributor to La Croix International.
