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Laudato Si’ Anniversary

Here are a week’s worth of prayers and reflections to celebrate the anniversary of Laudato Si’ – issued on 24 June 2015!

We offer quotes from Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care of our common home with questions for reflection and a prayer for each morning and evening of Laudato Si’ Week.

Laudato Si' Week reflection quote. "One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor. Everyday, unsafe water results in many deaths and the spread of water-related diseases including those caused by microorganise=ms and chemical substances." Laudato Si', n 29.

For Reflection:

• What is the most serious problem with the quality of water where you live?
• Who is the most badly affected by this problem?
• What action can you take?

Prayer for Living Water

Creator God,
you offer us living water.
Yet too often we offer
those suffering disadvantage and exclusion
death-dealing water.

The quality of water
reflects the quality of our relationships,
with one another,
with the rest of your creation,
and with you.

Help us to change our ways,
and to accept your invitation
to the fullness of life.
May none among us thirst
in body or spirit.

Sandie Cornish


Laudato Si' Week reflection quote. "it would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis." Laudato Si' n 101.

For Reflection:

• What are some of the ways in which human beings have contributed to the ecological crisis?
• How can we take responsibility for these actions?
• What values and attitudes might we need to change?

Prayer for Ecological Conversion

Loving God,
you are the creator of all that is
including each member of the human family.
We have exploited and neglected
other creatures
and the natural world.

Help us to turn from attitudes of domination,
towards understanding
our kinship with the whole of your creation.

May we care for our common home
and discern within it
your song of love.
May we accept
your invitation to love.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "We have the freedom needs to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral." n 112

For Reflection:

• How do you limit and direct the role of technology in your life?
• What are some ways in which technology be at the service of a healthier, more human society?
• How do you understand ‘progress’?

Prayer for Technological Responsibility

We thank you God
for our capacity to make things.
We thank you for inviting and trusting us
to make the world with you.

May we never forget that our creativity
is a gift that reflects your nature.

May we always use our freedom
to direct technology
towards the common good
of the whole human family
and all of your creation.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si Week quote. "Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur." n 114

For Reflection:

• How might the pace of life prevent us from seeing reality?
• What are some signs of positive and sustainable progress made?
• What values does our society need to recover?

Prayer for Contemplative Vision

Lord of History,
help us to slow down,
to cast a long, loving look
upon our common home,
and to see it with your eyes.

Help us to discern
your Spirit at work in the world.
Help us to incline the ear of our hearts
to your call to us in today’s events.

Support us and guide us
as we seek to put aside our pride and our projects
in order to humbly do your will.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God." n 119

For Reflection:

• Do I see value in other creatures and the natural world apart from their use to me?
• Am I open to the needs of others?
• What does the way I treat the environment say about my relationship with God?

Prayer for Right Relationships

Creator God,
you made us for relationship
with one another
with creation
and with you.

Teach us to respect one another
and help each other
to become all you made us to be.
Help us to care for one another,
and for all of your creation.

May we never forget
that all we are
and all we have
and all that is
exists by your grace.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "If everything is related, then the health of a society's institutions has consequences for the environment and the quality of human life ... social ecology is necessarily institutional." n 142

For Reflection:

• How do corrupt political institutions affect the environment and the quality of human life?
• In what ways can educational institutions promote a positive social ecology?
• How can healthy economic institutions serve both the quality of human life and the environment?

Prayer for Wise Governance

All powerful God,
your laws are written in our hearts
and in the book of nature.

Help us to make wise laws
to order our life together.
Inspire us to keep the institutions
through which we care
for one another and the planet
healthy.

May our societies be governed
according to your will.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us." n 159

For Reflection:

• What kind of world would you like to leave to future generations?
• Do you see care for creation as a matter of justice between generations?
• What changes might intergenerational justice call for?

Prayer for Intergenerational Solidarity

Almighty and ever loving God,
you willed each one of us into existence.
Your love extends from generation to generation.

We are tempted to treat your gift of creation
as ours alone,
disregarding those who will follow us.

Strengthen our sense of solidarity
with future generations
that we may care for the world that we have received
as a sacred trust
knowing that it belongs also to them.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "International negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good." n 169

For Reflection:

• How might the richer and more powerful nations be convinced to carry a larger share of the cost of transition to a renewable energy future?
• How might we nurture a sense of the global common good?
• What signs of international solidarity give you hope for the future?

Prayer for Conversion

Compassionate God,
we struggle to move
beyond our own interests.

Help us to let go of our selfishness
and focus on the good of all of us.

We know that we are
all in this together.
Touch our hearts
and move us to action.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "The environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces. Once more, we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals." n 190

For Reflection:

• Do we tend to treat the market as a magical solution to all problems?
• What role might the market play in safeguarding the environment?
• What else might be needed in order to safeguard the environment?

Prayer For Wisdom

Bountiful God,
you provide us with all that we need.

Help us to understand the role
of market forces
so that we may use them appropriately
and not make an idol of them.

Grant us the wisdom and commitment
to actively and effectively
safeguard your creation.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "The emptier a person's heart is, the more he or she nees things to buy, own and consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality." n 2014

For Reflection:

• Would the planet be able to support everyone if they all shared your pattern of consumption?
• Do you ever buy, own or consume things in an effort to fill an emptiness?
• How can you live a little more simply?

Prayer Seeking Forgiveness of Consumerism

Forgive us, Gracious God,
for the times when we seek
to fill our emptiness
by buying, owning and consuming things.

It is you for whom our hearts long.
Only in union with you
will we find true happiness.
Grant us the grace
to turn to you.

Sandie Cornish


Laudato Si' Week quote "An awareness of the gravity of today's cultural and ecological crisis must be translated into new habits." n 209

For Reflection:

• If information and awareness are not enough to motivate changes in behavior, what else might help?
• How is today’s culture related to the ecological crisis?
• What new habits can you begin to cultivate?

Prayer for New Habits

All powerful and ever loving God,
open our hearts to the needs
of our society and the earth.

We are aware
that we face a grave crisis,
yet this knowledge has not moved us
to effective action.

Fill us with the hope that flows
from trust in you.
Direct our hearts and minds and hands
to new habits of doing and being

Sandie Cornish


Laudato Si' Week quote "Each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us." n221

For Reflection:

• Do you think of yourself as a creature?
• What Word of God has another creature spoken to you?
• Have you ever thought of other creatures as reflecting something of the Creator?

Prayer to Embrace Creatures

Creator God,
you speak to us through
each of your creatures.

Give us the humility
to be attentive
to the message of each one.

May we embrace each creature
with respect and care
as kin and companions
on our journey to you.

Sandie Cornish

Laudato Si' Week quote "Happiness means knowing how to limit some needs which only diminish us, and being open to the many different possibilities which life can offer us." n 223

For Reflection:

• Are you always on the lookout for what you don’t have?
• Have you ever found material simplicity liberating?
• What do you really need in order to be happy?

Prayer for Happiness

Gracious God,
you are the source of all life and love.
Yet we seek happiness in so many things
that are not your will for us.

Grant us a discerning spirit,
detachment from that which diminishes us,
and the deep joy
of living in union with you.

Sandie Cornish


Laudato Si' Week quote "Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity." n 240

For Reflection:

• How does the mystery of the Trinity speak to you of global solidarity?
• Do you see the world as a web of relationships?
• Have your relationships helped you to grow and to become more holy?

Prayer to the Trinity

Blessed Trinity, three-in-one,
teach us to model
our relationships on yours.

Help us to learn
from your internal life
how to embrace diversity,
affirming equality despite difference.

Teach us how to live mutuality,
in an interconnected cosmos.
And may all our relationships
be generative and life-affirming
like yours.

Sandie Cornish

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