We will know that we have encountered God’s Word when we begin asking different questions. Instead of “what is best for me?” we begin to ask “how best do I love my neighbor?”. As the climate warms each year, we are confronted with a dilemma. Two-thirds of our electricity in Texas still comes from burning fossil fuels – coal and natural gas. And so, when we power on our air conditioning units, we are adding more CO2 and methane to the atmosphere which is adding to the heat blanket that is already overheating us. The hotter it is, the more we run the AC, the hotter it gets. It is a vicious cycle!  As the concentration of these gases continues to rise, so will the number of days over 100 degrees, affecting the occurrences of droughts, flooding, wildfires, and heat deaths. During his papacy, St John Paul II called us to “ecological conversion” – an understanding that many actions that we take affect the wellbeing of others, both now and in the future. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of care for the earth under the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not steal.” When we abuse our earth we are “stealing” from the wellbeing of future generations – our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will inherit the earth that we leave them. The technology is now available to convert to cleaner forms of energy. Arizona, for example, now provides solar power to one million homes. This is free electricity from the sun that does not harm the atmosphere. Are we willing to make small sacrifices in order to leave a cooler earth for our grandchildren? That is a better question to ask. – – – Fr. Jim