Monthly Prayer Guide

Editorial page

This prayer guide is a companion for our movement members—whether used in community or in personal reflection. Each month, it offers stories, reflections, and testimonies from members across our global family, inspiring us to pray, contemplate, and act with renewed care for creation.

In this extraordinary year, we Raise Hope together: marking the 10th Anniversary of Laudato Si’ and the Laudato Si’ Movement, and celebrating 800 years since the Canticle of the Creatures. These milestones invite us to deepen our commitment to cherishing our common home and to strengthen the bonds that unite us as one global family.

Throughout 2025, our monthly intentions are aligned with the Pope’s prayer intentions—each enriched with a Laudato Si’ perspective. May this guide encourage us to act with courage, love with purpose, and nurture hope for our common home, one step at a time.

The African Region offers a powerful example. During the Season of Creation, Sr. Kinikonda Okemasisi, LSA from Kenya, prayed:

“Lord, how can we rejoice when our actions have plundered and mismanaged creation? Grant us your Spirit so we may think and act ecologically, becoming true caretakers of our Mother Earth—for today, tomorrow, and generations to come.”

This prayer came alive in a Climate Procession in Kenya, held with the Draw the Line Global Mobilization as world leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly. Faith communities, NGOs, and media united—Franciscans, Oblates, Dominicans, ACWECA, Oxfam, 350.org Africa, and more—declaring 2025 a turning point for urgent climate action.

Hear Creation’s Song

Monthly intention:

For collaboration between different religious traditions

Quote of the month:

“All Christian communities have an important role to play in ecological education.” LS 214

Ecology of gratitude

Lord, we thank you for the gift of this day. 

This is the day you have made for us to rejoice and be glad in it. But how can we rejoice and be glad in the environment that we have individually and collectively destroyed, plundered, and mismanaged? How can we be glad when our very actions have failed to recognise the sacredness and beauty of creation. How can we rejoice when our mother earth is groaning with pain? Lord grant us your loving spirit so that we may be able to think ecologically, act ecologically and thus become ecological human beings with fully developed ecological hearts ecological ears and ecological eyes and thus resolve to love and take care of our mother Earth for our own well-being today and the well-being of our brothers and sisters tomorrow and for ages to come. 

We pray this through Christ our Lord amen. 

Developed by Sr. Kinikonda Okemasisi, LSA from Kenya. Member of Laudato Si Unit, Pan African Theology Network (PACTPAN) Lecturer at Tangaza University and Superior of the Little Sisters of St Francis West of the Rift Valley Region.

Hear Creation’s Cry

Monthly reflection to deepen our eco-conversion

Birthday tree growing initiative

Steeven Kezamutima, Africa Programs Coordinator, from Burundi, and based in Kenya

Sometimes, it takes living through difficult moments to truly understand how deeply peace and creation are connected.

In 2018, Kenya was going through a period of political tension and tribal division. As a newcomer at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, I could feel the heavy mood among young people—confusion, frustration, and division pulling them apart. At the same time, I longed for a space of integration, a way to belong in this new country.

So, on my birthday, I decided to do something unusual. Instead of cutting a cake alone, I invited students to gather with me and plant fruit trees. We called it: “Cutting cake and growing trees—a new tradition to celebrate birthdays.”

What started as a personal gesture quickly became something much bigger. I wanted to bring together a generation that was being divided, manipulated, and misled. What I didn’t expect was to plant not only trees, but also the seeds of a movement—a movement that listens to both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

From that day forward, the tradition continued. Month after month, communities and individuals embraced it, turning birthdays into moments of unity, peacebuilding, and ecological healing. Watching this unfold changed me. I realized that environmental action isn’t separate from peace—it is one of the most powerful ways to build it.

When I look around today, I can’t help but notice how much money is spent on sensitization campaigns, or on tree-planting events organized like one-time spectacles. Meanwhile, something so simple—like celebrating birthdays with trees—could achieve the same and more, all while being rooted in daily life.

Compare this with how birthdays are often celebrated today: thousands of dollars spent on flights, luxury hotels, and consumerism that vanishes in a moment. What if, instead, birthdays became a time to give thanks—first to God the Creator, who keeps us alive, and then to creation itself, by restoring a little piece of Eden?

The beauty of this tradition is threefold: it honors God, it gives pride in contributing to the work of creation, and it ties us to future generations who will one day eat the fruits of our labor. Imagine a world where birthday trees blossom into orchards, where families no longer need to buy fruits at the market because the land around them provides. A world alive with birdsong, the aroma of ripening fruit, fresh air, and the gentle harmony of creation.

Every year, I still celebrate my birthday this way—ecologically, joyfully, and with deep gratitude. And I invite you to join me in this tradition. Together, we can turn something as ordinary as a birthday into an extraordinary gift for peace and creation.