The Season of Creation – the annual Christian celebration of listening and responding together to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor – is drawing to a close and once again, it has been an important reminder of how faith communities can respond together to the climate crisis.

The Season of Creation began on September 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and ends on October 4, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.

On January 19, 1909, four days after the death of St Arnold Janssen, his successor, Fr Nicholas Blum, wrote a letter to all the congregations founded by St Arnold with this request: to keep Arnold Janssen’s memory alive, to continue and expand his work in his spirit, reflected SVD Superior-General, Fr Budi Kleden SVD in a YouTube message on St Arnold's feast day recently.

His life-force, his spirit, is well-formulated in the prayer he passed on to us as his legacy: “May the holy triune God live in our hearts and in the hearts of all people”.

A new initiative aims to invite Pacific Islanders living in Australia to embrace the principles of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ and become positive agents of change for their homelands by bringing their voice to the fight against climate change.

Fr Asaeli Rass SVD says the Laudato Si Movement, in partnership with the Edmund Rice Centre’s Pacific Calling alliance will encourage ex-patriot Pacific Islanders to work for a better climate future for their home countries.

The SVD AUS Province is embracing the principles set out in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ by taking a series of small, practical steps to help protect the environment.

Recently, the Provincial Council and the Treasurer’s Office approved the installation of a 25.2KW solar panel array at Dorish Maru College in Melbourne.

If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us it is how deeply the globe is interconnected.

This interdependence is something I’ve been pondering on as Christians across the world prepare to join together over the next month to celebrate the Season of Creation.

The young people of St Maximilian Kolbe Parish in Marsden, Queensland, recently brought Pope Francis’ plea for ecological conversion to life when they hit the streets with garbage bags in hand, for Clean Up Australia Day.

“It was Laudato Si’ in action,” says Parish Priest, Fr Sunil Nagothu SVD, of the Pope’s encyclical on ‘Caring for our Common Home’.

The roof of St Maximilian Kolbe parish in Kingston-Marden, Queensland is freshly adorned with rows of solar panels – a concrete sign of the parish community’s commitment to playing its part in preserving God’s creation in the spirit of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si.

Parish Priest Fr Sunil Paul Nagothu SVD says parishioners have worked hard to raise funds to support the transition to renewable energy, with the purchase and installation of the solar panels now providing a sustainable power solution for the parish.

Well greetings, friends! This month’s message for our In the Word E-News comes from me, Fr Raas, rather than from Fr Henry, who is taking his home leave at the moment.

Do you remember Pope Francis’ encyclical letter, Laudato Si? It gave us so much food for thought about how we should care for our common home, but what have we done to take up the challenges it contained?