Season of Creation

The Season of Creation spans five weeks between the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (September 1) and the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4). This “time for creation” offers, in the words of Pope Francis, “individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live."¹ Below is a way to live out these three dimensions of Pope Francis' call:
 
As individuals and families: Confession
In calling for a deep "ecological conversion," Pope Francis has emphasized the importance of examining one's own conscience, of recognizing one's sins against creation, however great or small. Seeing the interconnectedness of our world leads to an understanding that “[e]very violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment” (Caritas in Veritate, no. 51). We invite you to bring these sins to confession and to perform a spiritual work of mercy for our common home, such as an act of “grateful contemplation of God’s world” (Laudato Si’, no. 214). 
 ¹ Pope Francis, “Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis For the Establishment of the ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” September 1, 2015. 

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The Social Justice Council, through our recently formed Racial Equity Ministry (REM), sponsored two important presentations in the past year:

• Representatives from the JustDeeds organization and the City of Shoreview were in the Courtyard in May to talk about discriminatory housing covenants that exist today on mortgage deeds in Shoreview and other suburbs - more than 65 attended.
• A speaker event sponsored by REM was held at the Shoreview Community Center in late October entitled Understanding Our Neighbors, Understanding Ourselves: A Constructive Conversation about Race and Racism. More than 75 attended.

 

• In the Spring, St. Peter Claver members were in the Courtyard selling tickets to their annual chicken BBQ and a few weeks later many St. Odilia parishioners attended and enjoyed fellowship and great food. 
• Social Justice members from St. Peter Claver were guests of St. Odilia at 11 am Mass in October and stayed for a planning luncheon hosted by St. Odilia Social Justice Council. 
• St. Peter Claver invited our members to their Thanksgiving Mass and several attended. The Mass included participation by groups from different African and Caribbean countries who danced to the altar to present their gifts, dressed in native garb and singing native songs. 

The dominion granted to man by the Creator is not an absolute power, nor can one speak of a freedom to "use and misuse," or to dispose of things as one pleases. The limitation imposed from the beginning by the Creator himself and expressed symbolically by the prohibition not to "eat of the fruit of the tree" (cf. Gen 2:16-17) shows clearly enough that, when it comes to the natural world, we are subject not only to biological laws but also to moral ones, which cannot be violated with impunity. A true concept of development cannot ignore the use of the elements of nature, the renewability of resources and the consequences of haphazard industrialization - three considerations which alert our consciences to the moral dimension of development. (St. John Paul II, On Social Concerns[Sollicitudo rei Socialis], no. 34)

We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures. Thanks to our bodies, God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations. (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel [Evangelii Guadium], no. 215)

Laudato Si  (Papal Encyclical 2015)
Laudato Si Prayer Book
Creation Mysteries of the Rosary
Care for Creation Resources

 If you are interested in doing more to promote the Care for Creation at St. Odilia, please email Blaine Mably at [email protected]