All are welcome to attend a Mass to mark the 10th Anniversary of “Laudato Sí’: On Care for Our Common Home” which will be celebrated Sept. 6 in St. Anselm Parish, 1028 Wayside Rd., Tinton Falls.
Entitled “Pilgrimage of Hope for Creation,” the day will include a “Hope For Creation Prayer Walk” at 3 p.m. in which attendees will pray as they walk around the parish grounds. At 4:30 p.m., Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., will celebrate a Mass for Creation in St. Anselm Church.
This first papal encyclical on the environment was promulgated by Pope Francis on June 18, 2015, as an appeal to all human persons “for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet,” writes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on its website. “Pope Francis calls the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of our environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. This encyclical is written with both hope and resolve, looking to our common future with candor and humility.”
Laudato Sí coincides with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, celebrated annually on Sept. 1. Bishop O’Connell celebrated the inaugural Mass for the occasion in the Diocese in the Our Lady Star of the Sea Chapel of St. Denis Parish, Manasquan, in 2015. Likewise, for the past decade parishes across the world have found ways to bring concern for how the environment is treated to the forefront.
Pope Francis “built on ‘integral human development’ from Benedict XVI and ‘human ecology’ from John Paul II,” Celia Deane-Drummond, director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute at Campion Hall at England’s Oxford University, told Catholic News Service in late April.
So while his 2015 document “wasn’t dropping out of the sky,” she said, there was a notable “change of tone and a change of emphasis and a much greater stress on dialogue with people from other traditions and openness to the world.”
Laudato Sí also showed “a pastoral heart” with a clear awareness of the suffering of people and the world “that we need to incorporate in how we live and act as Christians,” Deane-Drummond said.
To learn more about the Pilgrimage of Hope For Creation and to register, visit tinyurl.com/Sept6thPilgrimage. Registration will be accepted by Sept. 3.
Carol Glatz of Catholic News Service contributed to this story.
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