A proposal for a one-hour Eucharistic Adoration – On the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has published a proposal to
encourage the faithful to organize in their particular Churches an hour of
Eucharistic Adoration on the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on 1
September. The proposal, which opens with a 5-minute audio-visual welcome, is
offered on the Dicastery’s website, www.iustitiaetpax.va, under the special
section dedicated to the Laudato Si’ . It is available for download in
English.

The proposed programme
for the hour of Eucharistic Adoration offers an introductory Collect from the
Orthodox tradition, to be followed by selected passages of the Word of God.
First and foremost are passages from Genesis (1:26-2:3 and 2:15), which provide
the narrative of Creation and of God’s will to take man “and put him in the
garden of Eden to till it and keep it”. This reading is followed by Psalm 148,
in which all creatures are called to give praise for the wonders created on the
earth: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the
heights!”. Also proposed is a passage from the Gospel according to Matthew
(6:25-33), in which Jesus says that our life is worth more than food, and our body more than clothing:
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”.

Three passages from the
Laudato Si’ then follow: in the first (nn. 8-9), the Pope recalls
that Patriarch Bartholomew “has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to
repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, … ‘inasmuch as we all generate
small ecological damage’”. In the second (n. 236), the Pontiff highlights that
in the Eucharist “all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation”. In
the third (nn. 241-242), the Pope refers to Mary and Joseph, pointing out of
the Virgin in particular, that: “Just as her pierced heart mourned the death of
Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the
creatures of this world laid waste by human power”.

The
Intercessions call for prayer that Christians seek first God’s kingdom, strive
to grow in spirit, to bear much fruit, to work for the good of the Church, and
that all generations may share in the goods of creation. The proposed programme
concludes with the recitation of the Our Father, the concluding blessing, and a
passage from the Pope’s letter of 6 August to Cardinal Turkson and Cardinal
Koch for the establishment of the World Day.