Every year the Catholic Church marks the anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical Laudato Si’, celebrating what it means to care for our common home from the 19th – 26th of May. This year the theme of Laudato Si’ Week centres around ‘seeds of hope’. We are called to consider how we can plant and nurture seeds to be the hope that the world needs during this time of suffering for our planet (Laudate Deum, 2).
To support Laudato Si’ Week, the Catholic Earthcare program is helping parishes and schools celebrate and delve deeper with three new resources – one each for a primary, secondary and Parish audience - all available for download.
All three resources tell the story of Chiquito, a farmer in Timor-Leste who has learnt drought and flood resistance farming techniques to improve income and food security for his family. Teachers of students in grades 4 – 12 can also sign their classes up to attend Q&A sessions exploring how climate change is impacting communities in Timor-Leste and what we can do to help.
Caritas Australia is also calling on the community to act by engaging with the Together We: Tree of Life campaign. Together We is a campaign launched by Caritas Internationalis that aims to encourage people to take collective action to fight poverty, uphold dignity, and protect nature in the spirit of integral ecology.
As part of this, the Tree of Life campaign invites us to connect with our local Members of Parliament on how we can care for our common home. To do this, students and parishes can write their message on a leaf and add it to their own ‘Tree of Life’, with ideas on how to create one included in the school resources.
Participants are encouraged to share their tree on social media using #TogetherWeBelong, tagging Caritas Australia, a local MP, @catholicearthcareaustralia and @iamcaritas.
Kirsty Robertson, CEO at Caritas Australia said “Laudato Si’ Week is a time to reflect on how to care for our common home and a time to pray that we may become seeds of hope for our world. Together We ensures that we take this task on collectively.
Whether you join a Q&A, read Chiquitos story, contact your MP, create a tree of life or simply engage with some of the prayer and reflection cards, please know that every action counts towards our collective response to the cry of the earth.”
The Office for Justice Ecology and Peace has also created Laudato Si’ Week resources focused on the some of the ecological problems faced by Indigenous Peoples and the work Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are doing to heal Country, which can be found here.
