Water
We invite you to utilize the resource page for Climate Action Now, developed my Sister Mary Heather MacKinnon. 
On September 20 and 27, days before the UN meets for an emergency climate summit, people around the world will come together to call for climate action, in solidarity with young people who will be striking from school to convey the urgency of their cause. For more information click here and here.
We invite you to participate in an action in solidarity with these students, to stand with them in hope for a sustainable future.
On the 20th and 27th, consider holding a virtual “march” with posters in your ministry sites or in NDC, VND, Chicago, and VA; or hold a silent prayer vigil of 350 seconds to recognize with others the 350.org movement that calls us to reduce carbon emissions now. Please see Sister Mary Heather’s resource for more ideas.
We invite you to pray the words of Pope Francis, adapted from his Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care Creation:
God of Life,
We know that “each Christian man and woman, every member of the human family, can act as a thin yet unique and indispensable thread in weaving a network of life that embraces everyone. May we feel challenged to assume, with prayer and commitment, our responsibility for the care of creation. May God, “the lover of life” (Wis 11:26), grant us the courage to do good without waiting for someone else to begin, or until it is too late.” Amen.
Haiti
Undocumented Haitians in the Bahamas are among those most profoundly affected by Hurricane Dorian, and are now experiencing increased vulnerability to deportation and discrimination, as well. Please keep them and all affected in your prayers.
Season of Creation Reflection
Great Barrier
by Barbara Kingsolver
The cathedral is burning. Absent flame or smoke,
stained glass explodes in silence, fractal scales
of angel damsel rainbow parrot. Charred beams
of blackened coral lie in heaps on the sacred floor,
white stones fallen from high places, spires collapsed
crushing sainted turtle and gargoyle octopus.
Something there is in my kind that cannot love
a reef, a tundra, a plain stone breast of desert, ever
quite enough. A tree perhaps, once recomposed
as splendid furniture. A forest after the whole of it
is planed to posts and beams and raised to a heaven
of earnest construction in the name of Our Lady.
All Paris stood on the bridges to watch her burning,
believing a thing this old, this large and beautiful
must be holy and cannot be lost. And coral temples
older than Charlemagne suffocate unattended,
bleach and bleed from the eye, the centered heart.
Lord of leaves and fishes, lead me across this great divide.
Teach me how to love the sacred places, not as one
devotes to One who made me in his image and is bound
to love me back. I mean as a body loves its microbial skin,
the worm its nape of loam, all secret otherness forgiven.
Love beyond anything I will ever make of it.
