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Caring for All of God’s Creation: They Will Know We are Christians By Our Love

Article from Laudato Si’ Movement

As Hurricane Helene battered the southeast United States, and Hurricane Milton comes barreling towards us, creation is “groaning in travail” through storms, hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, floods, and droughts across our nation and our world. 

Catholics across the nation are responding to this worsening climate crisis with love and hope during this Season of Creation spanning from September 1 (World Day of Prayer for Creation, or “Creation Day”) to October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. For St. Francis, loving creation was a means through which he expressed love for our Creator. In the model of Christ and St. Francis, we allow our hearts to break and in that heartbreak, find the courage for bolder action to grow love at a global scale. 

The lack of adequate response by people in public positions of power to this crisis can be maddening and feel disempowering. Yet, we know from our faith that every voice is sacred. It certainly can seem that some voices have much greater power and reach than others. Those of us “in the pews,” doing our best to be parents, siblings, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors in our day-to-day lives, can feel that sense of “What can I do, in the face of so much suffering, here and now?”

Sr. Jean Marie Ballard and others organize a Season of Creation booth at town fair. Photo from Laudato Si’ Movement

As followers of Christ, we shift that question to ask: “What does it mean to love in the face of so much suffering?”

These acts of love are cultivating this healing change throughout our nation! Below are just some of the actions:

  • “Creation Care Corners” in bulletins and Laudato Si’ / Creation Care Communities forming from Connecticut to California 
  • Diocesan Laudato Si Action Platform plans being made and reviewed in light of science-based realities as in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Indianapolis, and Lexington 
  • Women religious inviting local elected officials to a dialogue at town fairs in Indiana 
  • Public statements from Catholics at a Railroad Commission meeting in Texas, advocating for the health of the people of the Permian Basin who are falling sick because of the drilling 
  • Season of Creation masses being celebrated in parishes big and small from New York to Boston to Phoenix
  • Catholics pushing for support of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty in Florida
  • And so much more!