March 2026
Monthly Prayer Guide
We pray for the gift of Sister Water, precious and life-giving, a living sign of your love within creation. Grant us responsibility and wisdom to protect and conserve her through faithful care and just policies. Make us instruments of your justice, so that water may reach every home and remain a source of life for all.
Editorial page
In this Lenten season, we turn our hearts toward Sister Water — humble, life-giving, and sacred. Lent invites us to return to what truly matters: to God, to creation, and to the most vulnerable. Across the Americas, water sustains life, yet many suffer from drought, pollution, and injustice in access to this gift.
Water is memory, baptism, tears, and hope. In Lent, she reminds us of our own need for purification and renewal.
This is not only a time to reflect, but to convert. May our fasting, prayer, and almsgiving lead us to protect this sacred gift and commit ourselves to water justice. Let our Lenten journey flow into concrete acts of care for our common home.
Share your prayer, story, or action with our global community on the LSM Collective Mural — a shared space where our global Laudato Si’ family walks together : https://padlet.com/comms95/bulletin-board-r5ehk86zfmxr6mzc
Prayer of the month:
Prayer for water
Creator, we turn our attention to acknowledge and give thanks for Your gift of water. The mighty seas, the calm lakes, the rivers, the streams, and the rain that falls to refresh our sister mother earth. At the beginning of creation You sanctified the waters. Your gift is indispensable to all life on earth. It grows our food, it sustains all living things physically. When we are in need of spiritual strength You instructed us to go down to the water and wash our spirits clean. Awaken the heart of those who exploit Your gift for profit. And forgive those of us who take Your gift for granted. Help us to remember the preciousness of Your gift and give us the wisdom to use Your gift wisely and to share it equitably.
A:Ho*
*A:Ho is a form of “amen,” meaning something like “since it was uttered, it is so”.
Virginia Fifield, Mercy Associate, Rochester, New York, United States of America. Virginia is from Akwesausne, a Mohawk reservation that straddles the U.S. and Canada. The Mohawk tribe is part of the Haudenesaune (Iroquois) Confederacy.
Hear Creation’s Song
Monthly reflection to deepen our eco-conversion
Praise be to you, my Lord, for the water!
Maria Itatí Sánchez, currently a member of the “Laudato Si’ Circle for the Forsaken Nature”, LS animator since 2021, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)
First and foremost, I give thanks to God for my parents, for the sacrament of baptism, and for the brothers and sisters who, throughout my life, have been present on this wonderful journey. Priests, neighbors, friends, family, sincere loves… Even in the wounds sometimes inflicted in our relationships, even in difficult times, God’s love is always present, healing and transforming.
Feeling my body supported by the ground, seeing the sky, the clouds, closing my eyes and listening to the silence of nature. So much to be thankful for!
I just remembered how pleasant the taste of fruits and seeds is…they nourish us, how pleasant it is to contemplate and pray!
This February, the summer we’re experiencing where I currently live, I begin my day by watering part of the neighborhood grounds where about a hundred families reside, sharing common green spaces.
One morning, while watering, I found some avocados that had fallen from a tree. I gratefully began gathering them, feeling as if nature were repaying my daily watering by letting them fall from the tree! I ate some and gave others to neighbors and friends.
When I’m watering, a hummingbird often appears, right in the stream of water—what a joy it is to see!
I often exercise outdoors in Avellaneda Park. The park is full of trees, and one afternoon while we were stretching, we saw a squirrel climbing from tree to tree. We also see parrots, and their behavior makes us laugh. Most of the time we exercise under the trees, feeling the natural coolness of their shade.
At sixty-four, I feel privileged that God has allowed me to reach this age and to connect with nature as much as possible each day, and also to have the opportunity to connect with others.
Today, our common home brings us the urgent need to persevere in love to care for all of creation. Personally, I try to be mindful of recycling, consume only what is necessary, and often ask in my prayers to be an instrument of peace, inspired by the beautiful prayer of Saint Francis.
Right now it’s raining; there’s no need to water the plants today, nor is there any physical activity in the park. I hear the thunder and the rain falling.
I am writing this testimony of gratitude before the Blessed Sacrament in the parish of Our Lady of the Forsaken… So much to be thankful for!
“Praised be the Holy Spirit, who with your light guides this world toward the love of the Father and accompanies the groaning of creation; you also live in our hearts to impel us toward good. Laudato Si’! (Christian prayer with creation – LS)
Hear Creation’s Cry
Before the rainbow, there is a storm. The cry of creation is often heard in the fragility of our bodies, the tears of families, and the longing for healing. Even there, signs of hope appear, reminding us that God never abandons creation.
Take a moment to look at this image. What is the cry of creation saying to you today?
One afternoon in January, I was driving home from a doctor’s appointment with my dad when we received life-changing news. So much pain, illness, and suffering in the world… In the middle of traffic on the highway, I looked out the car window and saw a work of God’s hand in the sky: a beautiful rainbow that brings hope, the kind we need to reaffirm in times of illness. It appeared as a sign that God is always with his children. Then a light breeze fell, refreshing the earth—water that expresses the earth’s tears but also reminds us that God always pours out his love.
Questions for reflection
- What gifts of creation do I receive each day that I may be overlooking?
- How is your own fragility — or the fragility of someone in your community — connected to the cry of the Earth today? And where do I see signs of hope in the midst of it?
- Choose one gift of creation you may have been overlooking. Write a short prayer of praise to God for this gift, and place it somewhere visible as a reminder throughout the month.
Hearing Creation’s Call
Responding to Creation’s Call in Our Region
LSM Peru, Chimbote Circle proposal and its ALBA project (Adorando Limpiando la Bahía al Amanecer – worshipping by cleaning the bay at dawn)
Every 24th, we return to the shore of El Ferrol Bay. We return as one returns to a spring.
We begin in prayer, allowing the murmur of the water to awaken in us an awareness of our common home. We contemplate its beauty—the light on the sea, the embracing breeze, the life that pulsates—and also its wounds, visible in what human carelessness leaves behind on the sand.
Then our hands reach down to the beach. Picking up trash becomes an act of conversion. Bending over the earth is learning humility. Caring is loving through actions.
In the end, in grateful silence, we understand that integral ecology is not just an environmental task, but a spiritual path: listening to the cry of the earth, reconciling ourselves with it, and renewing, together, our promise to protect the water and sand that God has entrusted to us.
Between the sky and the sea, each 24th becomes a renewed “yes” to life.
This month’s call to action:
Pray. Unite. Renew.
Join our contemplative Lenten Prayer Service, gathering our global community in prayer for our common home.
🗓 March 14, 2026
🕗 8:00–10:00 a.m. (Quito) | 14:00–16:00 CET
Let us return to the heart of God and creation — together here.
LSM Monthly Prayer Guide
The LSM Monthly Prayer Guide invites our global family into shared prayer and ecological conversion. Each month, one region offers a prayer intention rooted in its local reality and opened to a shared global hope, in the spirit of Laudato Si’. Reflections, images, and testimonies from our members help us listen together to the Spirit’s call in creation.
This prayer guide was developed with the support of Laura Morales and Sulman Hincapié from Colombia, Maria Itatí Sánchez from Argentina, Ronald Moreno and Laudato Si Circle-Chimbote from Peru, Francis and Amy LSM Animators from Hispanicamerica, and the strategic work by Daniel Castellanos from Mexico, Susana Salguero from El Salvador, 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.