Find Season of Creation Reflection, Prayer, and Action prompts all this month. We hope these resources will guide and inspire your journey to a renewed relationship with God and Creation.
Week #4 Reflection/Grounding Prompt — Communing with Creation in a particular place
“The history of our friendship with God is always linked to particular places which take on an intensely personal meaning; we all remember places, and revisiting those memories does us much good.”
Laudato Si’, 84
Recall: Enter into a time of prayer and bring to mind a place in nature that is meaningful to you. It can be a place from childhood, a place visited during a special trip, or maybe somewhere you’ve never been, but has significance to you.
Imagine the place as vividly as possible, as if you are there right now. Noticing the colors…the textures…the different shapes…the sounds…the smells. Notice also how you feel in this place.
Pray: As you imagine yourself in this special place, ask if there is a message God is sharing
with you at this time. Just notice if anything arises.
Give thanks: When you are ready, close by offering a prayer of thanks to God for the gift of creation and whatever message you may have received at this time.
Source: Laudato Si’ Movement Prayer Book
Prayer for Indigenous and Original Peoples
Great Spirit, the essence of all Nature,
~ Originally written in Portuguese by Laura Vicuña Pereira Manso, of the Kariri Indigenous People, Franciscan Catechist Sister.
Breath of life that creates and recreates all beings,
Our indigenous and original peoples hear Your
voice in the waters, lands, sun, winds, and dewfall
that moisten our sister mother earth and the
germinated seeds that turn into food.
They see the love of Your beauty in the flora and
fauna, in the pollination of birds, butterflies, and
bees, the nectar of life everywhere.
Teach us to hear their sacred instruments and
flutes that elevate body and spirit to the eternal world.
Give us Your Wisdom to rescue our harmony,
interconnecting us in a grand scheme, weaving
and threading the web of life.
May Your power be the sunlight that illuminates
our joint living for the “good living” or sumak kawsay, buen vivir.
Force of Life, give us Your Strength to keep alive
our peoples who most care for our common home.
Sustain our great Hut, which yearns for life and
respect.
Make us hear Your life in the moan, cry, and voice
of the forests and of the people that grow from the
womb of the earth.
Amen.
Action — Check ecological and human health impacts of your favorite personal care products on the EWG Website.
To celebrate the Season of Creation, I invite us to commit to just one action this week to help heal the Earth and protect human health: reconsider your personal care products.
Many of us buy our favorite deodorant, volumizing shampoo, or whitening toothpaste without a second thought about their impact on Creation—or on our own health. Unfortunately, some personal care products contain chemicals that disrupt hormones, worsen allergies, or pollute waterways. We might be causing harm simply by washing our hair.
Here’s the good news: safe alternatives are available, and a trustworthy nonprofit organization of scientists is doing the hard work of testing and evaluating products so we can make more informed purchases. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to “empower you with breakthrough research to make informed choices and live a healthy life in a healthy environment.”
Their Skin Deep Database lets you look up the “score” of almost any personal care product. Visit the page, type a product name—for example: Dove Bar Soap—into the search field. On the results page, click the best match for your product.
The lower the score, the safer the product. The EWG website also highlights specific concerns (e.g., “Moderate risk for cancer”) for the product and offers EWG Verified alternatives to make healthier, safer choices easier.
This week’s challenge: Pick three products you use regularly and run them through the database. See if you can make one swap that benefits both your health and the health of Creation. Because where we spend our money truly matters.
Find Season of Creation Reflection, Prayer, and Action prompts all this month.
-We hope these resources will guide and inspire your journey to a renewed relationship with God and Creation.
