Water, Immigration, Trafficking, Haiti
Earth Day is April 22. It is the day after Easter this year and thus serves as a poignant reminder that our care for the earth is an integral part of our faith. As Pope Francis instructs, “What [we] need is an ‘ecological conversion’, whereby the effects of [our] encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in [our] relationship with the world around [us]. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience” (Laudato Si’, 217). An encounter with the risen Christ, who seeks to make one, calls us to incorporate all of creation into our vision of right relationships – of oneness, recognizing that the earth serves as the backdrop for all human activity, including all four AMSSND commitments.
To encourage such an ecological conversion, we have developed the following Earth Day materials:
- Access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity. - Pope Francis, "Laudato Si’" Please click here to read "The Water Commitment, shareholder advocacy and SSND" by Sister Ethel Howely
- Before humans appeared on the Earth, the basic rate of extinction of species was one to five a year. The basic rate now stands at upwards of one thousand a year. Please click here to read more on the tragedy of extinction by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ.
- O Holy Trinity, we marvel at the wonders of your creation and our place in it! Please click here for the Earth Day Prayer Service.
- On this Earth Day, many of us – more than a billion people, globally – set aside a day to focus our attention and energies on our planet and its needs. We cannot fail to notice that our world is becoming increasingly defaced and volatile. Click here for the Just Act and video for Earth Day 2019 - Protect our Species
We hope you will make use of these, as we endeavor to uphold “the dignity of life and the care of all creation”!
