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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston

Good morning.

Radio may not be the best place to learn about the amazing eco system that is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia but I was particularly taken with a short piece on the Today programme about the challenges it faces.

Extending for thousands of kilometres, the Great Barrier Reef is home to countless micro habitats, each of which provides a home for more than 1,600 species of fish, dolphins and whales and six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles. No one reef looks like another. Their beauty – and their strength – lies in their diversity.

However, the rise in ocean temperatures has led to severe bleaching and decay and recent cyclones have caused large areas of the reef to fracture into coral skeletons. Without intervention the coral will simply break up and die.

Yet marine scientists are rising to the challenge. Massive seawater misters are being deployed to create fog over reefs exposed to too much sunlight and thousands of living coral fragments are being planted to enable reef renewal.

We are not the first generation to feel overwhelmed by challenges to faith and to Christian values. Nor are we immune from the temptation to think that there is nothing much we can do, that decline is inevitable.

But like the coral scientists we will need to be both creative and systematic in finding solutions to enable our own hugely complex ‘barrier reef’ church home to thrive once more. Jesus talks about the way the grain of wheat has to die before the crop can be harvested. What new fragments do we need to be planting?

Lord, in all the challenges be our guide, for we put our trust in you.

Amen.

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