Monthly 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 the prevention of suicide and eco-anxiety

Quote of the month:

“To say that there is nothing to hope for would be suicidal, for it would mean exposing all humanity, especially the poorest, to the worst impacts of climate change.” LD 53

Inspire in us a spirit of awe (LSM Prayer Book)

Divine Creator, God,
We thank You
for the wonder of the universe
and its eons of time and life
that has sustained us.
We thank You for our sister mother earth,
her beauty and giftedness,
the bounty of her days
and her sacred ground.
Sadly, we have abused
earth’s sacred space
and have misread its sacred story,
claiming it as our own,
opposing Your divine plan.
Its gift of sustainability
has been snatched away,
diminishing its sustenance
for the good of all.
Yes, we can hear its anguished cries
of pain and distress;
its resources stripped bare,
its climate distorted,
its water and soil poisoned,
its landscape unable to cope.
Creator God,
Help us to care for sister mother earth
with loving attention
to its sacred journey.
As it gives of itself without measure.
Inspire in us a spirit of awe
for its beauty and many life forms.
And may we be thankful
knowing that it waits unceasingly
to refurbish itself for our sake.
Amen.
( Sr. Maura Fitzsimons, PBVM. Laudato Si’ Animator. Shaw, Mississippi, United States of America.)

Hear Creation’s Cry

Monthly reflection to deepen our eco-conversion

Cry of the forest

Simone Amaral, Laudato Si’ Animator, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

I was walking down another path, lost in an existential crisis, searching for the truth. I went from one group to another — sects, religions, movements — but deep down, I still felt lost.

One day, someone invited me to help build a church. I thought, how amazing! Me, helping to build a church! Even though I was exploring other paths, whenever I heard the word “church,” something deep in my soul stirred. I would picture our beautiful Church — the Church of Jesus Christ. So, filled with joy, I went.

The workday took place in the Atlantic Rainforest, in São Paulo. As soon as I arrived, I offered to help. We walked into a clearing where many trees had been cut down. I saw stumps everywhere, and a deep sadness rose inside me. Then someone called, “Come help!”

It felt like a pull, but looking back, I realize: not every invitation to help is a good one. Sometimes we rush to act without asking what God truly wants from us. At that time, I was still very lost — and when we’re lost, we often end up with others just as lost, the blind leading the blind.

I joined four others — three men and a woman — who were trying to pull a tree from the ground. “Help us!” they said. I grabbed hold, feeling how strong and deeply rooted it was. As we struggled, something inside me shifted. My conscience suddenly lit up. What am I doing? I thought.

I let go of the tree and ran into the forest, heart pounding, tears welling up. The deeper I went, the clearer everything became. I began to see the forest — really see it. Trees cut halfway, wounded and leaning on each other for support. I felt the pain of creation itself.

Then I heard it — the forest weeping. A sound like the song of whales, but deeper, filled with sorrow. A lament rising to heaven. I wept with it — for the trees, for the earth, for us.

I cried out, “What can I do?” I wept at our cruelty, our carelessness, and my own blindness. How could I have ignored this? How could I not see that I am part of creation — that it breathes with me, feeds me, shelters me, and reflects God’s beauty and love?

That day, I understood: the earth is not just our planet — she is our home, our sister. She is crying out, waiting for our conversion — waiting for us to remember who we are and whose creation we share.