In support of Pope Francis’ April prayer intention for environmental protection — “That people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God” — the Global Catholic Climate Movement announces its Care4Creation Month.
Throughout April, individuals, parishes, and religious communities are encouraged to pray for the protection of the natural and human environment.
The Care4Creation Month campaign includes reflections on the Stations of the Cross based on Saint John Paul II’s call for an “ecological conversion.”
There is also a specially developed set of meditations for the Glorious, Joyful, Sorrowful, and Luminous mysteries of the Rosary, and a Litany to the Holy Trinity, the Creator.
Visit Care4Creation to download these prayers, as well as posters, liturgical aids, and daily meditations.
Bill Patenaude, a founding member of the Global Catholic Climate Movement and author of CatholicEcology.net, expresses it well:
“Recognizing that it is Christ who makes all things new, we eagerly join our voices to Pope Francis’ prayer intention for April. We pray for the virtue to live in accord with God’s laws. We pray for mercy for our sins against each other and against the natural order. And given that issues like climate change can cause division, we especially pray for unity within the Church and a willingness to act.”
Catholic Rural Life is an active member of the Global Catholic Climate Movement, so we encourage members in our network and rural parishes to organize special holy hours in April with Eucharistic adoration and Benediction. Begin with Pope Francis’ prayer intention and then continue with one of the many prayer resources found here.
Founded in 2014, the Global Catholic Climate Movement is an international network of around 100 Catholic organizations aiming to mobilize Catholics around the world for climate action, in line with Catholic values, especially the protection of creation and all life.
The movement currently offers a petition asking to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees C, in line with a letter from Catholic bishops on all continents.
INVITATION TO ACT:
Pope Francis has said forthrightly: “On climate change there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act.”
Join with many others and sign this Catholic petition addressing the world leaders, who will meet in a U.N. Climate Summit at Paris in December 2015, and urge them to commit to ambitious, pro-life action and solve the urgent climate crisis.
We encourage you to promote this petition with friends and family.
As Catholics we choose respect for life, and we are called to turn from how we have caused damage to ourselves, others, and creation, to realize how we have missed the mark and inadvertently caused death or destruction, and to make life-giving choices. We ask forgiveness, reconcile and recommit ourselves to life so to begin again. We lift our voices for life and creation, now and in the future, with our faith in Resurrection.
