47 The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side. Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah,[b] where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”
Meditation
From the writings of Fr. Leonardo Boff
We are not the focal point of creation. We are not, as it were, its landlord, adopting the attitude of Adam, who gave all things their names and thus possessed them. We are here to serve as shepherds and custodians of other beings, and we are responsible for their integrity. We can use them, therefore, solely for our needs which, as those of human beings, always contain a measure of superabundance and gratuitousness. This is the true meaning of the biblical texts that speak of human beings as made in the image and likeness of God. As sons and daughters of God, and not as despots, we prolong the creative activity of God, cultivating nature, improving it, and multiplying it (as in the case of genetic engineering) responsibly. In this way, not only God is creator, but so also, by divine plan, are we.
Men and women are an end and not a means. But they are not the final purpose. There is no fixed central point, since all beings can be a center. What does exist is an equilibrium between life and death and an interplay of relationships embracing all beings, since some have need of others to exist and to subsist. We all exist thanks to others, with others, and through others. Together we make up the biosphere as a great integrated and integrating whole.
Next, we have to accept the otherness of all that exists in creation. Every form of being, animate or inanimate, has a value as such. It has its possibilities and limitations within the ecosystem itself. For human intelligence and affectivity, every being is a challenge to decipher the message of life, beauty, and rationality that it possesses in itself. All beings, especially living beings, deserve to be accepted and even respected in their otherness. No one has the right to seize and destroy what the vast process of evolution has spent thousands of years in producing. Everything that exists and lives has the right to exist and live.
Musical Selection
Prayer