Montly Prayer Guide

Editorial page

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.
Let us embrace this extraordinary year as a time to Raise Hope—celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Laudato Si’ and the Laudato Si’ Movement, alongside 800 years of the Canticle of the Creatures. These remarkable milestones invite us to renew our commitment to caring for creation, cherishing our
common home, and deepening the connections that unite us as one global family.
This year, we are setting our monthly intentions according to the Pope’s prayer intentions for 2025, but with a Laudato Si’ dimension to them. May we all be inspired to act with courage, love with purpose, and bring hope to our common home, one step at a time.

Hear Creation’s Song

Monthly intention:

For families in crisis to find hope
in the gift of Creation

Quote of the month:

“Hope would have us recognize
that there is always a way out,
that we can always redirect our
steps, that we can always do
something to solve our problems.”
LS 61

Prayer for families and hope

Dear Lord,
Look upon our wounded Earth and those who live in it.
Look especially at our families.
Those who are already suffering from the
consequences of the ecological and social crisis.
Those who are worried about what lies ahead, and
about their children’s future.
Those divided by the issues running through our
societies, when some are painfully aware of what’s
happening in our world, and others are not.
Support them with your love.
We all have to face these problems, which are too big
for us, and which stem from human inconsistency.
Help us not to be overwhelmed by darkness.
Grant that we may always savor the beauty of your
Creation.
Grant us to see the bud being born, the seed
sprouting, and all the silent signs of your Kingdom
growing.
Grant us to hear your voice speaking to us.
May we never let the flame of hope die within us and
around us.
Amen.
Anne Doutriaux, Laudato Si’ France Coordinator.

Hear Creation’s Cry

 Monthly reflection to deepen our eco-conversion

Conversion at the school of fragility

Marc Sandrin, Laudato Si’ Animator, Croissy sur Seine, France

My daughter Emmanuelle, at 36, speaks without words. Her eyes—deep, powerful, full of life—say everything. Her face is an open book of emotions, yet her hands remain caught in repetitive movements, and her body
struggles to express what her heart so clearly feels.

She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t create in the way the world expects. Butsh e gives—her presence, her laughter, her silent invitations to slow down and see.

Caring for Emmanuelle means tuning into the smallest details: the flicker in her eyes when she wants something, the unspoken plea for comfort during
a difficult moment. It means learning patience, deepening love, and embracing a rhythm of life that doesn’t rush.

She loves walking in nature, looking intently at everything around her. Sometimes, she bursts into laughter—pure, unrestrained joy. We look around, trying to see what she sees. And in those moments, she teaches us to marvel at the world again.

Through Emmanuelle, we have met extraordinary people. Caregivers who, despite the challenges of their work, bring kindness and joy. Aziza, a Moroccan woman who was her home carer for years, became a dear friend
—someone who could navigate the hardest days with grace.

We’ve been blessed to meet other parents walking a similar path—those who face the challenges of raising children with disabilities. Their strength, joy, and unwavering love have left a deep mark on our hearts. These parents have shown us how to find beauty in simplicity, how to embrace the art of sober solutions when faced with challenges. They’ve taught us that strength is often found in the quietest of moments, in the humble acts of care and kindness that don’t demand attention but speak volumes.

Our Foi et Lumière community has been another beacon of support. It’s a place where people with intellectual disabilities, their families, and friends gather once a
month to share life’s moments—often simple, sometimes slow, but always deeply meaningful. It’s a community where nothing extravagant needs to happen for us to feel uplifted. We come together in solidarity, listening with patience to the most fragile among us, learning to savor every minute in a world that’s rushing too fast. It’s the antithesis of the consumerism that is relentlessly damaging our Earth. Here, in this sacred space, we remember what truly matters.

Of course, our life is different from that of parents who don’t face these particular struggles. Our other children have felt the weight of our attention often being pulled toward Emmanuelle. But in caring for her, we’ve learned a profound respect for life—one that goes beyond our own needs, reaching out to the needs of Creation itself. Pope Francis, in Fratelli Tutti (188), writes: “To tend those in need takes strength and tenderness, effort and generosity… It involves taking responsibility for the present with its situations of utter marginalization and anguish, and being capable of bestowing dignity upon it.”

Everything is connected. Emmanuelle reveals this profound truth to us every single day. Through her, we are called to slow down, to listen not just with our ears but with our hearts, to notice the smallest gestures, and to find wonder in the most ordinary moments. Her presence challenges us to step outside the rush of the
world and truly see—see the beauty of life, the dignity in every soul, and the sacredness of Creation itself.
In these quiet, unspoken moments, we are reminded of the values at the core of the Laudato Si’ Movement: that the Earth is a common home, that the most vulnerable must be protected, and that we are all interconnected in this fragile web of life. Emmanuelle’s life, in its simplicity and purity, teaches us to honor the Earth not by consuming it, but by living gently within it.