Sisters Attend Lectures on Ecological Theology

On the weekend of September 30-October 1, seven of our sisters joined our brothers at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA for a series of lectures by Dr. Jame Schaefer, Professor Emerita of Marquette University.  Dr. Schaefer’s lectures, entitled “Seeking, Finding, Contemplating and Acting within God’s Creation,” sought to reveal the value of the patristic and medieval traditions in discussions about the environmental crisis our world faces today.  Dr. Schaefer first became interested in this topic when she was working on environmental issues in her community in the early 1980s and wondered how the Catholic theological tradition could inform choices to preserve the environment.  Discovering that little had been written on the topic, she began to do research and developed her critical-creative method to bring ancient texts and worldviews into dialogue with modern issues.  In the course of her lectures, she illustrated how this method works by using the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  As is well known, St. Bernard writes extensively about love of God and of neighbor and sees all love as participating in God’s love.  Recalling the expansiveness of love as St. Bernard understands it, Dr. Schaefer poignantly asked her listeners if they could expand their love to include all of creation as “neighbor” as well as to stretch that love into the future so as to make responsible choices for the environment today.  In her final lecture, Dr. Schaefer highlighted the ways that the communities of St. Joseph’s Abbey and Mt. St. Mary’s Abbey have been working to care for and preserve the environment.  She encouraged and challenged the brothers and sisters to continue such work.  To that end, her lectures helped to inform the intentio cordis with which to approach questions of environmental preservation, namely to understand these choices as an act of love and as deeply part of the contemplative call of Cistercians today.