For me, this petition raises striking disparities.

We prize the latrines and midden heaps of lost cultures as precious data and links to our past for our future. Yet we rightly condemn recent waste as destructive. Riverside shell heaps nourish; plastic and mine runoff kill. Both ancient and recent life, we’ve learned, destroyed.

We’ve gradually overtaken this planet as OUR resource. Despite warnings, we devour its finite elements. We consume and dispose without creating and using more recycled products. Loss, damage, waste bring suffering, annihilation.

This Lent, we confront our own wasteful, polluting habits: self-indulgent appetites and ways? (Petition 3); intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts? (Petition 6); blindness to others’ suffering? (Petition 8).

Lord, we repent of our failures in Petition 3: skipping green protocols (so hypocritical if we claim to be environmentally responsible!) but especially impatience with those who care less.

Our pursuit of renewal joyfully reconnects us within this world. It’s also contagious. When I remove trash from riverbanks, strangers often join me.

Lord, even small actions honor you, our place within this universe, and our responsibility to future generations.

—Suzanne Glover Lindsay, St. Stephen’s historian and curator 

About Lenten Reflections

Throughout Lent, Father Peter and Suzanne Glover Lindsay will reflect on some of the petitions of confession, repentance, and resolve from the Litany of Penitence, available to download below.