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Objective
OBJECTIVE: Students will APPLY the creation story to their own lives while envisioning how they would like to see the world. They will CHOOSE steps that they can take to better care for creation. They will ANALYZE the impact of one artist. They will CREATE their own art to INSPIRE themselves and others. Families will REFLECT on Pope Francis’s message and DISCUSS how they can care for creation together.
Step 1: Pray
READ the following prayer picturing God as the artist of creation. Then DISCUSS the questions with a partner.
Created by God
God began with a blank canvas.
In the beginning creation took no form or shape,
had no color, or light,
only darkness and an infinite silent void.
On the first day, God brought light to his creation.
Then God began to add shape to creation
by adding the shape of a dome,
color followed as the sky,
land and the seas were formed.
Then God began adding more details
and layers as he created
seeds, trees, and plants to the water and to the land.
To illuminate creation God
added stars, the sun and the moon.
Then God brought to life
every shape and size
of creatures of the seas and animals upon the land.
The last detail was when God added
a bit of a self portrait by
using his image he created humans,
and entrusted them to care for all that he had created.
- After reading the Genesis story with God as the artist, DESCRIBE one image that spoke to you.
Step 2: Personal Connections
Sitting in his studio with paint brushes all around him Brother Mickey McGrath humbly tells the stories of how he uses his talent as an artist and storyteller to connect people to each other and the beauty of creation.
An Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, Brother Mickey says he felt called to his vocation. Being a religious brother, he says, allows him the freedom to share his passion as an artist. “Beauty brings people’s hearts together,” he says. “Beauty is present where you are and in what you are looking at.”
He finds inspiration everywhere, and over the years has partnered with Maryknoll missioners and found new expression for his art. One instance took him to Nairobi, Kenya, and the work of Maryknoll Father Richard Bauer at the Eastern Deanery AIDS Relief Program (EDARP) for people living with HIV.
The plan was for him to create art for the waiting room for women who are HIV positive. The women come for prenatal care, receiving effective interventions to prevent the baby they carry from being infected.
“I asked Mickey to paint a mural of the Visitation, Mary and Elizabeth, both pregnant, and comforting each other,” Father Bauer says. At Brother Mickey’s suggestion, Father Bauer invited youth to help with the murals.
“It was pure grace and transformation,” Father Bauer says. “On Monday, 8 to10 HIV-positive teenagers who were all receiving treatment at the Maryknoll EDARP clinic came to help Mickey. He drew the outline of the Visitation, numbered the outlines, and the youth just jumped in and began painting.”
The Maryknoller says initially the teens were shy, reserved and quiet, adding that the stigma for HIV-positive people in so much of the world is still great. For teens, this stigma and discrimination can be paralyzing, he says.
“These youth jumped into the project, and I watched how the energy, confidence, and pure joy increased throughout the week,” Father Bauer says. “By Friday, they were behaving and acting like ‘regular’ teens — laughing, joking, horsing around, filled with life and hope and joy!”
Now five years later, every one of those teens is a peer mentor at EDARP. They help newly diagnosed HIV-positive teens adapt to their medicines and model for them self-confidence and pride, he says.
Brother Mickey remembers the experience as a healing one. He says, “Healing power comes from creating beauty together.”
A couple of years ago Brother Mickey participated in a weeklong Maryknoll immersion trip to Native American lands in South Dakota and Wyoming to learn about the past and present struggles of the Lakota people. Seeing the landscape and witnessing the way Native spirituality treats creation as a gift energizes Brother Mickey’s own spirituality. It wasn’t his first trip to the Lakota people. A few years earlier he had painted a mural for the St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota.
One morning in Sioux Falls while Brother Mickey was praying the rosary in a garden, he was joined by local Indigenous leader and teacher Gary Cheeseman. Cheeseman began his own morning prayers, facing the rising sun in the east while drumming and chanting. Each man prayed in his own way that morning, and as Brother Mickey was saying his last Hail Mary, Cheeseman was finishing at the same time.
“We are all one, we are all connected,” Brother Mickey says, reflecting on that moment. “We are related to each other.”
In a small group ANSWER these questions:
- What does Bro. Mickey say about beauty? Where do you experience beauty?
- How does beauty connect us to God the Creator?
- Share an example of a time you created something with others. Tell what that experience was like for you.
- How did Bro. Mickey’s art transform the teens in this story?
- Share a time when something beautiful changed or transformed the way you look at life.
STEP 3: EXPLORE SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION
READ THE FOLLOWING:
Old Testament: Genesis 1:1-31
Life of Jesus: Matthew 6: 25-34
Christian Living: 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11
ANSWER the following questions on your own and then DISCUSS your answers in a small group.
- The passage in Corinthians says that God created each of us with different gifts (or talents). What makes you unique? What are three gifts that you see in yourself? What are gifts that others see in you?
- Bro. Mickey uses his art to teach others about God and caring for creation. How can you use what you are talented at to care for creation?
- Matthew’s Gospel tells us not to worry or be fearful when doing things. How can fear hold people back from being creative and doing good? What is one skill a person can use to overcome that fear?
WHAT DOES THE CHURCH SAY?
Brother Mickey McGrath, OSB uses his passion and talent for art in collaboration with the Bishops in this video to illustrate the importance of caring for creation. Care for creation is a Catholic Social Teaching principle that says, “We show our respect for the Creator by our care of creation. Care for the earth is a requirement of our faith. We are called to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God’s creation. This environmental challenge has fundamental moral and ethical dimensions that cannot be ignored.” USCCB WATCH the video at (https://www.usccb.org/resources/cst-101-care-creation) and then ANSWER the questions below in a small group or in a journal.
- Father James explains in the video that God has given us creation as a gift. What is one thing you can or are doing to care for this amazing gift of creation?
- Carolyn Woo said creation is for everyone and, “When creation suffers those that suffer most are the poor.” Share some examples of why you think the poor suffer most with climate change?
- When you look at Brother Mickey’s painting in the video what do you notice? How does it make you feel or think?
STEP 4: TAKE ACTION
In the passage that you read from Genesis it said “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” In the midst of our climate crisis, what kind of world would you like to create?
PAINT, DRAW, WRITE, or SCULPT an image of what you would like the world to look like 10 years from now.
As a group or class, share your art with each other when it is completed. Then REFLECT on the questions below together:
- As the artist, share what inspired you to create your art.
- LISTEN to each other as you comment on each other’s art sharing what inspires, intrigues, or motivates you about the art presented.
- Hold an Art Show for others in the school and your parents.
- Share your art with us at whidalgo@maryknoll.org
RAISE YOUR VOICE
As a group DECIDE on one of the pieces you created in the previous section or CREATE a joint project to use as a mural. USE as a theme “We are all one, we are all connected,” or whatever inspires your community.
LOCATE a place where your group can CREATE a mural for many to see. USE one of the two methods to complete the mural:
BE A GLOBAL NEIGHBOR
PARTNER with Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers as they work with the local community in Kibwezi in southeastern Kenya in a care of creation project. Together with your financial support they will plant sustainable trees and install a solar pump for a well.
Visit https://maryknollsociety.org/project/care-of-creation to learn more
ENGAGE YOUR FAMILY
As a family, spend some time in your favorite spot in creation. READ Pope Francis’ quote below and DISCUSS how your family can protect and care for this place and for all of creation.
“Creation is not some possession that we can lord over for our own pleasure; nor, even less, is it the property of only some people, the few: creation is a gift, it is the marvelous gift that God has given us, so that we will take care of it and harness it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude.” Pope Francis May 21, 2014
GOD’S CREATION WAITS
A free, downloadable PDF, for kids grades 2-5 and their adults, on noticing, appreciating, and protecting God’s Creation.
