Our parish Green Team meets once a month to discuss how we as a parish can do a better job of caring for God’s Creation. Together, we have expanded our parish recycling efforts and started composting. The Green Team inspired the creation of the Community Garden. We are also participating in the Home Energy Challenge by the Community Climate Collaborative. If you’re interested in participating in any of these initiatives, reach out to Sheila for more details!
EARTH DAY 2020
This year is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the 5th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’, on Care for our Common Home. Therefore, it’s a big time for us to consider our relationship with creation! Wednesday, April 22 is Earth Day, and there are a number of efforts happening around the globe.
- Participate in the Catholic Climate Covenant’s program from the comfort of your home. Sheila will be hosting a zoom meeting to discuss the questions at 7pm on the 22nd
- Join Interfaith Power and Light’s prayer at noon. This will be happening around the country and around the world.
- Sign up for the Community Climate Collaborative’s Home Energy Challenge. They have great tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint (some of which are much easier in quarantine, like working from home). Make sure you join Incarnation’s team “Catholics for Creation”
- Go outside! Make plans as a family to ride bikes, hike in the woods, or go stargazing. Any of these can remind us of the vastness of God’s creation.
- Separate your trash and recyclables, and make sure that recycled goods are being reused to the greatest extent possible.
- Advocate for our governments (local, state, and national) to take climate change seriously, and move in a direction that is better for the earth and better for all humanity. Franciscan Action Network has some great resources and action alerts!
Thank you for joining in our Earth Day efforts. Together, we can be better stewards of creation, and more loving to each other.
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“Every individual is called upon to play his or her part to…secure development in peace, in order to safeguard nature itself and the world about us…I wish to appeal with simplicity and humility to everyone, to all men and women without exception. I wish to ask them to be convinced of the seriousness of the present moment and of each one’s individual responsibility, and to implement – by the way they live as individuals and as families, by the use of their resources, by their civic activities, by contributing to economic and political decisions, and by personal commitment to national and international undertakings.” [Pope John Paul II, 2001]
Our parish Green Team formed in summer 2011 to explore how we, as a Catholic community, can be stewards of God’s gift of creation–both in parish facilities and events and among our parish families. We believe that taking care of the earth is part of our responsibility as people of faith. By engaging in education, advocacy, and action, we work to promote a right relationship with our planet and lifestyles that leave smaller footprints on our earth. If you would like to get involved in our Green Team, please contact our Coordinator of Justice & Charity.
We want to tread lightly but act boldly.
One way the worldwide Catholic population is living out the call to care for God’s Creation is by participating in the Catholic Climate Movement. They are promoting a worldwide petition for the global climate summit that encourages us to take care of the earth that we have been given. The US group is called Catholic Climate Covenant, and through them we can make a personal commitment to respecting creation.
Resources
- Home Energy Efficiency Slideshow – This presentation was given to members of our Incarnation community by staff members from LEAP-VA (Local Energy Alliance Program). See below for more resources from LEAP.
- Recycling Guide
- Compost Guide
- Guía de reciclaje
- Guía de compost