This resource is a guide for our movement members to use collectively or individually every month. Each month this prayer guide brings reflections and testimonies from different members of our global movement to inspire you to pray, contemplate, reflect, and act for creation. This month’s edition was prepared by Steeven Kezamutima from Kenya, Sr Loredana Dalla Libera from the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the support of Suzana Moreira, from Brazil, and the strategic work by Guada García Corigliano from Argentina, design work by Marco Vargas from Ecuador, as well as work from others of the Communications team spread across the Americas and translators spread across the world.
If you prefer, you can download this resource in PDF format by clicking here.
How to use this prayer guide for an encounter
This year we are making some changes to this guide so it can better support you and your community. Here are a few tips for you to use this guide as the structure of an encounter:
- Read the full guide to familiarize yourself with the content and plan how you will use it in the encounter.
- Hold the encounter through the three steps: Hear Creation’s Song, Creation’s Cry, and Creation’s Call, making sure to prioritize time for common prayer, contemplative silence, and personal and shared reflection.
- After the encounter, remember to thank the participants and start planning for the next one, as well as continue to pray throughout the month with the month’s intention and prayer.
Hear Creation’s Song
For us to celebrate all the hard work being done across the globe for the care of creation
“Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life (Earth Charter)” (LS 207)
The Okapi is a unique mammal that is found only in DR Congo, currently at risk due to hunting and habitat loss.
Prayer of the month
Everything sings greatness
Praise and thanks be to You,
Creator of the universe
For the beauty and variety You have given us.
As seasons change,
the colors of the woods, countryside and meadows
also change continuously
and bring joy to our eyes,
along with new scents even for those who cannot see.
How marvelous the perfect mechanism that
You thought of,
one of an orderly and joyful coexistence,
and with so much responsibility
for the beings You created in Your own image and likeness!
The scent of the flowers, the majesty of the trees,
the song of the birds, the spectacle of the mushrooms
make of Your woods stupendous cathedrals,
where we celebrate in joy
the memorial of creation and our covenant as brothers and sisters.
From the heights of the snowy peaks
and from the depths of the abysses of the cerulean seas
everything sings the greatness of God our Creator.
Laudato Si’, our Lord! Amen
(by Giovanni Zanaboni, from the LSM Prayer Book)
Hear Creation’s Cry
Monthly reflection to deepen our eco-conversion
Action rather than just talk
By Sr Loredana Dalla Libera, LSA, Kinshasa, DRC
If we’re living in a global ecological crisis, we’re also living in a crisis of human relationships.
Here in Kinshasa, where I’ve been living for a year, the relationship between humans and creation is broken.
After several attempts to start the Laudato Si training, I thought it was necessary to take action rather than just talk. But after a year here in Kinshasa, and after studying the environment and the people, I’ve come to this conclusion: Kinshasa is a very big city, but very dirty and unlivable. It has a population of 20,000,000, a city full of smog, dirt, poverty, and disease. At the diocesan level, there’s also an environmental unit within the Justice and Peace Commission and they try their best. At the parish level (remember, we’re in a very big city and there are a lot of parishes), not many people know about the Laudato Si’ encyclical. With a small group of Laudato Si’ Animators, we’re beginning to find the right time and contacts to start spreading the word about Laudato Si’ on radio broadcasts, in parishes, and on all ecumenical websites, and to form groups of ecologically aware people. Even religious men and women are becoming more aware of the issue.
There’s no such thing as difficulty per se, just the slowness and patience required to get the message of Laudato Si’ across and to arouse interest in and knowledge of Laudato Si’.
In front of our house, many students pass by every day, coming from other districts and also passing by on their way to work. Now, given the slowness, it takes patience to organize and schedule training courses and start awareness-raising work in schools, parishes, and groups. During this Season of Creation, I thought it might be interesting to put up a mural about ecology and the reality we live in, as a way of getting everybody to ask themselves questions. I got the idea and consulted first my sisters who supported it. I called some artists who helped me to put on the mural the burning ideas that I had in mind. The idea of drawing on the wall came from my intention of showing those who pass by our congregation Combonian Missionary Sisters and our home that there is a desire for change.
The message behind my mural is on the one hand the beauty of nature, a pollution-free nature with trees and green horizons. On the other, the pollution that fills our lungs with poison, drowning us in garbage and endangering the seas and people themselves. At the center is a man who flees pollution and decides to give his hand to nature, that is, he decides to relate to it, because he sees his future only in a change of mentality that can only be realized in relation to nature… This man loves life. And he sends out a message in the words of the encyclical Laudato Si:
“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth (LS 21). In the face of the environmental and social crisis, each of us is called to act”
Today it inspires many who stop their cars and enter our compound to ask for an explanation of the mural. One of the people who was very touched proposed that I go with her to see our parish priest and propose him a mural at our parish.
People pass by and look, read, ask questions… People are beginning to say that it’s important to take care of each other and nature too, I see there is hope to act with creation. I invite them to start with themselves, with their families… I don’t know if anything will change, but seeing people starting to ask questions about their lifestyle is already a step forward.
Image of the current relationship between human and creation, a toxic relationship with pollution that fills our lungs and water, before it kills fish
Questions for reflection
- How did Sr Loredana’s story resonate with you, thinking about the challenges she faced and the creative solution she found to engage her community?
- What are the negative aspects of your surroundings that usually upset you when you think about the challenge of caring for creation in your local community?
- What are some creative ways you can think of to engage your local community, to touch their hearts and minds, different from the solutions or projects you usually consider?
Hearing Creation’s Call
This month’s call to action
Participate in the Season of Creation closing next Oct 4
As we prepare for the feast of St. Francis of Assisi and the closing of the Season of Creation, we will celebrate a prayer service next Friday, October 4.
This special closing moment was organized and will be led by the Season of Creation Youth Committee, don’t miss it!
Join the prayer service on YouTube
Pray in communion with the Synod on Synodality
The Taize Community invites you to organize “Together” prayers all around the world on October 11 (or a date that best suits your community) to respond to Pope Francis’ invitation for all Christian denominations to invoke the Holy Spirit on the work of the Synodal Assembly and surround the second session this year with prayer.
If you are willing to host a prayer, please write to [email protected] and you will receive a suggested prayer service – make sure to mention you are part of LSM! It was on the date of October 11 that the Second Vatican Council opened in 1962, so the prayer will give thanks for the steps that have been made on the journey towards Christian unity since then.