Day 17 (St. Hildegard of Bingen; Harvest Moon)
Psalm 66(65):1-4
Evening (Thomas Merton)
Now, in the middle of the limpid evening,
The moon speaks clearly to the hill.
The wheatfields make their simple music,
Praise the quiet sky.
And down the road, the way the stars come home,
The cries of children
Play on the empty air, a mile or more,
And fall on our deserted hearing,
Clear as water.
They say the sky is made of glass,
They say the smiling moon’s a bride.
They say they love the orchards and apple trees,
The trees, their innocent sisters, dresses in blossoms,
Still wearing, in the blurring dusk,
White dresses from that morning’s first communion.
And, where blue heaven’s fading fire last shines
They name the new come planets
With words that flower
On little voices, light as stems of lilies.
And where blue heaven’s fading fire last shines,
Reflected in the poplar’s ripple,
One little, wakeful bird
Sings like a shower.
Musical Selection (Hildegard of Bingen)
In principio omnes creature viruerunt, in medio flores floruerunt; postea viriditas descendit.
Et istud vir preliator vidit et dixit: Hoc scio, sed aureus numerus nondum est plenus.
Tu ergo, paternum speculum aspice: in corpore meo fatigationem sustineo, parvuli etiam mei deficiunt.
Nunc memor esto, quod plenitudo que in primo facta est arescere non debuit, et tunc in te habuisti
quod oculus tuus numquam cederet usque dum corpus meum videres plenum gemmarum.
Nam me fatigat quod omnia membra mea in irrisionem vadunt.
Pater, vide, vulnera mea tibi ostendo.
Ergo nunc, omnes homines, genua vestra ad patrem vestrum flectite, ut vobis manum suam porrigat.
In the beginning all creation was verdant, flowers blossomed in the midst of it; later, greenness sank away.
And the champion saw this and said: “I know it, but the golden number is not yet full.
You then, behold me, mirror of your fatherhood: in my body I am suffering exhaustion, even my little ones faint.
Now remember that the fullness which was made in the beginning need not have grown dry,
and that then you resolved that your eye would never fail until you saw my body full of jewels.
For it wearies me that all my limbs are exposed to mockery.
Father, behold, I am showing you my wounds.”
So now, all you people, bend your knees to the Father, that he may reach you his hand.
Meditation
More than saving the old multilateralism, it appears that the current challenge is to reconfigure and recreate it, taking into account the new world situation. I invite you to recognize that “many groups and organizations within civil society help to compensate for the shortcomings of the international community, its lack of coordination in complex situations, and its lack of attention to fundamental human rights”. For example, the Ottawa Process against the use, production and manufacture of antipersonnel mines is one example that shows how civil society with its organizations is capable of creating effective dynamics that the United Nations cannot. In this way, the principle of subsidiarity is applied also to the global-local relationship.
In the medium-term, globalization favours spontaneous cultural interchanges, greater mutual knowledge and processes of integration of peoples, which end up provoking a multilateralism “from below” and not simply one determined by the elites of power. The demands that rise up from below throughout the world, where activists from very different countries help and support one another, can end up pressuring the sources of power. It is to be hoped that this will happen with respect to the climate crisis. For this reason, I reiterate that “unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment”. (LD 37-38)
Prayer