Urgent Call

When something is urgent, we drop anything that we do and attend to it. We not only attend to it but put in all our effort and our resources to it because it is urgent. So much more when this urgent call is an emergency. It should jolt us to action. All our adrenalin rushes in. This should be our attitude to the climate situation we are in. It is not only a climate crisis; it is a climate emergency! We do not look to the climate crisis as one of the many problems that we have to attend to. We are in an emergency. It is THE problem that we all have to attend to. We have a very limited window of time to act. If we fail to act now, our world, the earth that we know now, will no longer be the same for thousands or millions of years. The situation will be irreversible once we reach the tipping point, which the vast majority of scientists say is 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer since pre-industrial revolution time (more or less around the 1700s). We will reach that tipping point in 2030 if we act like business as usual in the world.  Already more than a million of animal and plant species have been brought to extinction since 1970. Our planet has become a lonelier place.

We people of faith have more compelling reasons to act now. This planet is the masterpiece created by our loving Father. He was pleased with it when he made it. It reflects His glory, His power, and His love. The Holy Book proclaims: “All your works give you thanks, LORD and your faithful bless you. They speak of the glory of your reign and tell of your mighty works.” (Ps. 145:10-11)And still more: “As the shining sun is clear to all, so the glory of the LORD fills all his works” (Sir. 42:16)We can know our Father because of His masterpiece. “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.”  (Rom. 1:20)

In destroying this earth, we are defacing our Loving Father. So we need to rouse the love for God of our people to care enough to prevent the further destruction of this world.

During the season of Advent and Christmas we have a singular opportunity for this. During the Simbang Gabi and the Christmas holidays, many people come to church. They have a special openness to the message of God. Let us use this season to bring out the urgency to take action now to prevent the further deterioration of our common home. Let us also use these liturgical seasons to summon all our faithful to pray together that this sense of urgency may be felt by all, especially by our political and business leaders. It should not be business as usual! We should drop everything that we do now and put our heads and hands together to save the only planet we have! We cannot gamble our future for the sake money and power. These will be of no use when the end is upon us.