You Can't Celebrate the Eucharist and Rape the Earth

 You can't celebrate the Eucharist with stolen bread nor can you celebrate and rape the earth.  These adages sound like liberation theology.  Now they're obvious.  Just look at melting glaciers and disappearing rivers.  

This is our beautiful earth.  Jesus came to our earth.  Our Eucharistic gifts of bread and wine come from the earth.  Of course, we need to care for our home, the earth.  The document, Sacrosanctum Concilum teaches us that Christ is always present in the Mass.  The congregation of the people, the Mass celebrant, the sacramental gifts, all reflect God's creation.

The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilum, reminds us that Christ is "always present in His Church" and that during the celebration of the Mass, Christ is present in the presider, the assembly of the baptized, the holy Scriptures proclaimed and the Eucharistic species of bread and wine shared. Whether we consider the presence of Christ in our neighbor or the sacramental presence of Christ in the gifts of the altar, both reflect God's continued self-offering and closeness to all creation.

Pope Francis' Encyclical, Laudato Si, reminds us of the ecological imperative we people have to care for the earth.  This morning I read where the Catholic Churches in Cuba are running out of communion wafers.     There is a scarcity of wheat to make the flour to make bread.  

Not taking care of our planet, in a sense, is raping the earth.  Likewise, not caring and feeding our poor people is stealing food from them.  You can't celebrate Mass, when people are thinking only of themselves.  Sin is sin.