Dear Friends,

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.

This year, the theme has been ‘Listen to the Voice of Creation’, and the logo has been the Burning Bush. Especially during this time, we have been asked to listen to the voices of those who are so often silenced or simply unheard in this debate.

We know that climate change affects the poorest among us in a disproportionate manner.

Here in our own neighbourhood, our friends in the Pacific are bearing the brunt of warming oceans, rising seas and unpredictable weather events. Historically, their voice has largely gone unheeded in the climate debate. But that is all slowly changing.

Thanks to the efforts of groups like the Edmund Rice Centre and their Pacific Calling Partnership, which the Divine Word Missionaries are a part of, the voice of those living in the Pacific is being heard across the world.

Representatives attended last year’s United Nations’ COP26 meeting and shared their first-hand stories of what climate change and rising ocean levels are doing to their countries. In my homeland of Fiji, beach erosion is causing lasting changes to vegetation and food chains. In Kiribati, the oceans are rising at a rate that will soon make the island atoll uninhabitable, as water tables are swamped and food chains affected.

Finally, we are listening to the Voice of Creation and the Voice of the People.

During the Season of Creation, in prayer, we lament the individuals, communities, species, and ecosystems who are lost, and those whose livelihoods are threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

From prayer, comes action. I am pleased to be part of an initiative supporting Pacific Islanders living in Australia to speak up for their homelands, believing they can be part of the solution, rather than simply a victim to the problem.

Spurred on by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical, people of faith, across ecumenical and interfaith communities, are leading the way in Listening to the Voice of Creation.

The Australia Province of the Divine Word Missionaries has begun the process of working towards Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ Goals by coming up with a practical action plan for caring for our common home across the Province, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Mynamar.

May this season be a time for us to listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor and act in whatever way we can so that our lives in words and deeds proclaim good news for all the Earth.

Yours in the Word,

Fr Asaeli Rass SVD,

Provincial.