The Book of Genesis tells us that the Creator God was pleased with his creation and that he entrusted Adam and Eve with a serious responsibility to care for everything that God had made.

God blessed [Adam and Eve] and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the Earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the Earth. God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the Earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the Earth, I give all the green plants for food. And so it happened. (Gen 1:28-30)

The “dominion” that our first parents were asked to exercise over all creation is the opposite of what regrettably came to pass as a result of their sin. Instead of nurturing and caring for our common home, self-centered human beings have tended to take it for granted, to neglect their responsibility as stewards of God’s goodness, and to abuse God’s creation.

As technology has become more sophisticated—and more destructive—it has too often been used to manipulate the gifts of creation and use them for purposes that contradict what God intends.

In his encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” published on May 24, 2015, Pope Francis called attention to humanity’s stewardship responsibility for the care for creation.

Eight years later, in his apostolic exhortation, “Laudato Deum” (“Praise God”), the Holy Father wrote, “Responsibility for God’s Earth means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world” (#62).

At the same time, Pope Francis said, “the universe as a whole, in all its manifold relationships, shows forth the inexhaustible richness of God. Hence, to be wise, we need to grasp the variety of things in their multiple relationships” (#63).

Along this path of wisdom, the Holy Father said, “it is not a matter of indifference to us that so many species are disappearing and that the climate crisis endangers the life of many other beings” (#63).

Indifference is a consequence of sin. When we are preoccupied with selfish things, we lose sight of our responsibility to exercise a respectful dominion over everything God has entrusted to our care. If we do not care for creation as God has asked us to do, it is because we no longer care for anything but our own selfish interests.

According to Pope Francis, Jesus, the new Adam, “was able to invite others to be attentive to the beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in constant touch with nature, lending it an attraction full of fondness and wonder. As he made his way throughout the land, he often stopped to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father and invited his disciples to perceive a divine message in things” (#64).

This is the mystical dimension that runs through the entire material universe. God’s grace transforms what is merely physical and makes it integral to the spirituality of creation.

Hence, the Holy Father says, “the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them toward fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence” (#65).

If “the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely,” the Holy Father writes, “there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face.” In fact, the pope tells us, “The world sings of an infinite love: how can we fail to care for it?” (#65).

We cannot fail to care for our common home if we have any awareness at all of the spiritual richness contained in all aspects of the material universe. The stewardship responsibility we have been given is serious. It demands that we never take for granted the beauty, power and majesty of even the smallest and most mundane things that God has made.

We have been given dominion over all things visible and invisible. This is an awesome responsibility. Let’s embrace it with a firm sense of purpose and a desire for abundant joy.

—Daniel Conway