July 10.  Family roots.  In their own families the older people shared, “A number of our generation were immigrants, but today many of our children, even from different races, emigrate to different countries to find a better life, to escape from conflict and war, for safety and security or for greater wealth.  How strong are your ties to the land of your birth and does it really matter?”   “I may still see myself as a Hollander, an Indian or Malawian, but I wonder whether our children will feel the same.”  Gary, the environmental activist, reminded the group of the importance of indigenous plants and how invasive exotic foreigner species can be.  

Joseph said to his brothers.  “I am about to die but God will visit you and bring you out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.  You shall carry up my bones from here.”  Gen 50: 24-26   Read from Genesis 37 to 50.  

Pope Francis. Our contemporary experience of being orphans as a result of cultural discontinuity, uprootedness and the collapse of the certainties that shaped our lives, challenges us to make our families places where children can sink roots in the rich soil of a collective history.  AL 193.    Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation.  LS 36.