The Year of Faith Reflection Corner

During the Year of Faith different sisters will be posting reflections on the Apostles Creed. Why the Creed? Because the Apostles Creed is the most basic statement of what we believe as Christians. We're not going to post reflections in order of the truths of our Faith as listed in the Creed but as appropriate for each month of the year. Our first reflection is appropriately:

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS Reduce your carbon footprint!” Once limited to fervent environmentalists, the push to reduce one’s carbon footprint, a common measure of environmental impact, is becoming a popular campaign.  Growing numbers of consumers are eager to buy cars, paper products and light bulbs advertised as environmentally friendly and others are even biking to work, in hopes that someone will eventually benefit from the sacrifice.  Behind this popular enthusiasm to improve the state of the planet through small changes lies a sound intuition: that whatever an individual does- good or bad- can have effects that extend beyond the here and now. But while we are just beginning to puzzle over the consequences of this insight on a material level, the Church has long foreseen the supernatural consequences of the same idea.

In professing belief in the communion of saints, the Church teaches that all her members are united to each other in such a way that they share in a communion of spiritual goods. Saint Paul famously calls this communion the Body of Christ- each of the baptized forms part of the body with Christ as the head. As with any other body, the well being of this body is affected by the health of its members. It is the practice of the virtues, particularly charity, that strengthens the members of this mystical Body.  From this, the Catechism concludes “the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all. Every sin harms this communion.” (CCC 953)  Because this communion extends to all places and includes the living and the deceased in heaven and in purgatory, whatever we do can take on cosmic proportions.

--Sr. Mary Veronica of the Cross, OP