+ 1st September – Happy Spring – World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
Dear friends,
A few years ago, Pope Francis asked that 1st September each year be marked as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. His groundbreaking 2015 encyclical – Laudato Si – On Care for our Common Home – remains a remarkable contribution to the world’s reflections and insights about our capacity and call to care for creation. For Catholic Christians, one of the hugely significant aspects of his encyclical is that it challenges us to never again see that environmental issues are only for those who like nature or who’ve got a thing about renewable energy or who want to talk about climate change. Instead, Pope Francis has placed the issues of the environment and creation officially into Catholic Social Teaching. Indeed the care of our common home – of all creation – of all of life – is central to our very Catholic faith.
A COMMON MESSAGE ACROSS CULTURES
Below is a short video that comes from CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development from England and Wales. I’ve chosen to use this one for today because it shows people from across many cultures sharing in a common message. In this time of the sadness and struggle of COVID – and hopefully beyond COVID – may such unity of purpose, possibility and hope grow, across all the key issues of our common care – one people in one creation.
AN INITIAL PARISH FORUM – A FIRST STEP
On Tuesday 1st September, World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, our parish is hosting a small online forum with some members of our parish schools – Our Lady of the Way Primary and Penola Catholic College – on the subject of The Environment and Creation. The aims are:
- To share thanks prayer concerning this topic and themes so central to our lives and world
- For some of our young people to share their hearts and minds – mentioning actions they’ve taken, learning they’ve embraced and other hopes and actions that inspire them
- To share how the issues of the environment and creation are central to our faith – not just an optional extra – and to share about the challenges and hopes of helping ourselves and our faith communities to appreciate this
- To invite the beginnings of some thinking about how the young people of our parish and schools community can be leaders to the wider community of parish, parents, families and people – in building awareness and action
- To invite ongoing thinking about how a piece of the land immediately around OLOW church might be used to express a growing awareness
- To decide if and when to reconvene – who to invite into this forum – and what needs to happen in the meantime
THE POWER OF YOUNG VISION
The short video below comes from Caritas Australia. It discusses the Stewardship of Creation, an important and central theme of our Catholic Faith and Teaching. The example given here in the video is about a group of young people from the slums of Sao Paulo in Brazil who took a stand on what looks like a very overwhelming and daunting reality. This might be different to what young people choose to look at in our community, but it’s an example of young leadership and powerful vision. On this World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, let’s pray for the discernment of our initial group of young people participating in our parish forum. May God bless their enthusiasm and passion to be leaders in building awareness across our community.
FROM POPE FRANCIS – A CALL TO AWARENESS AND ACTION
On this World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation – here are just the very first two paragraphs from Pope Francis’ remarkable encyclical, Laudato Si – On Care for our Common Home.
1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.
2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.
IT’S A LONG ENCYCLICAL
and well worth a read if you haven’t already – it’s free online
IN THE MEANTIME HERE’S A REALLY HELPFUL SUMMARY
of ‘ten takeaways’ relevant for our Catholic learning and appreciation
(Just click on the heading a few lines below that says ‘Ten takeaways from Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si’ ..’ – or if you have any trouble with that, just copy and paste the following link – https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/06/18/top-ten-takeaways-laudato-si)
Ten takeaways from Pope Francis’ ‘Laudato Si’
With friendship in God’s mission,
fr Paul
