Genesis 1:1-2:2 recalls the first account of creation, when God creates everything day by day with perfect rhythm. The Creator takes loving care to put the bounty of Eden’s garden in careful harmony for the enjoyment of our ancestors. Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-28, describes how God will sprinkle water to cleanse us from impurities resulting from the sin in that original garden. Humankind will be given a new heart and a new spirit to be the reconciled people of God once again.

Looking at these readings through the Easter event, and celebrating Earth Day in light of the resurrection of Jesus, we must recognize that in the present, many have forgotten the intended harmony of creation. We seem to have lost sight of our role as guardians of the beauty of creation.

As Pope Francis said June 5, 2013 in his audience on the World Environmental Day: “We are losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation. The implications of living in a horizontal manner (are that) we have moved away from God, we no longer read His signs.”

Also we must recognize that we have filled the new hearts and new spirits given us by God with self-serving and destructive actions that distort the original balance of creation.

Our Holy Father further emphasized this point in his “Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace: Fraternity, the Foundation and Pathway to Peace,” issued Jan. 1, 2014: “Yet so often we are driven by greed and by the arrogance of dominion, possession, manipulation and exploitation; we do not preserve nature; nor do we respect the command to ‘have dominion over the earth’ or consider it a gracious gift which we must care for and set at the service of our brothers and sisters, including future generations.”

It is precisely through the power of the resurrection of Jesus that we can recognize our wrongdoing against our earth. It is equally true that through this resurrection we can share a new life, as we hear in the letter from St. Paul to the Romans in the Easter Vigil: “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father we too might live in newness of life.”

St. Paul is urging us to understand the gift we celebrate in Easter: the reality that the resurrection of Jesus has brought to us a complete newness of life.

Let us express this newness of life by renewing our commitment to be careful sharers of creation. Let us take to heart what is proclaimed in the Easter Vigil Gospel. May we not “be afraid” to testify to our new life in Christ through our reverence for all created life.

One simple way is through the celebration of Earth Day. By simple actions to re-establish the order of creation, understand its own rhythm, recover the attitudes of wonder and contemplation, and avoid arrogance and greed, we may see anew our earth as a gift to be treasured by all and for all.

Start today by visiting http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/the-st-francis-pledge/