Laudato Si Week World Day of Prayer
To celebrate and recognize our continued call to care for creation the global church has been invited to participate in a world day of solidarity and prayer on Sunday, May 24, at 12:00 pm. If you participate, you may wish to use the prayer below alone or with a group.
Opening Prayer
O God, our world is large, and yet your Creation is so fragile. We glimpse the needs of our common home, of our sisters and brothers, and those needs are great. We want to turn away, but God calls us back. We want simple solutions, but God wants us to help solve the complex problems. We are called to listen, to learn, to reflect and to act. O God, give us a deep sense of our place in this web of Creation. Give us the wisdom of mind and generosity of heart to seek your will in the world today. Inspire us to respond to the call to live in solidarity with all of your Creation, so that the Earth, and all children of God might live in dignity and peace. Amen
Education for Justice Staff.
Suggested Readings
Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does.
James 1: 22-25
The Earth’s climate is changing. Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms and record high temperatures – are already happening. Many of these observed changes are linked to the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, caused by human activities.
Climate Change Indicators in the United States, US EPA
The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development…Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.
Laudato Si
I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.
Laudato Si
Short Video: This Is Not A Drill
Period of time for Reflection/Discussion
Possible Actions
Educate yourself about the climate crisis
Start conversations about climate change with family and friends
Support youth-led climate movements
Participate in public witness events that lift up care for creation.
Vote for public officials who are concerned about climate change
Use less water
Reduce food waste
Replace incandescent and compact fluorescent lights with LED lights
Consider driving a hybrid or electric car
Take the St. Francis/Laudato Si’ Pledge to care for creation and the poor :
“I pledge to pray, live, and advocate Laudato Si”
Closing Prayer
O God, your creative love brought forth our world,
Once a garden where humans could taste and see beauty and goodness.
But our eyes do not always see the sacredness of Creation.
We do not always remember that it is Gift Given so that all humans may live and flourish.
Inattention can change the world.
Even mighty glaciers weep now.
Lifestyles create pollution that blot out the sun.
The very skies above us are threatened.
Seas rise and whole peoples lose their homes.
O God, we ask you to Call us to renewal and to stewardship.
Call us to solidarity with the earth and all its creatures.
Give us new vision to see the fragile beauty that remains with us.
Give us new spiritual energy to become active in loving the world through our daily lives,
Give us new voices to speak out for environmental solidarity.
Bless us with a love of your Creation So that we may glimpse your Eden once again.
Adapted from a prayer by Jane Deren, Ed
Prayer Adapted from Catholic Climate Covenant