The Season of Creation: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor
September 7, 2021
Liturgy, Prayer
The Season of Creation is here, an annual Christian celebration of prayer and action for our common home, which begins with the arrival of Spring, and lasts to the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on 4 October.
Across the Season of Creation, we at the Diocesan Liturgy Office will share a number of beautiful prayers that have been created and shared by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) Office for Justice, Peace, and Ecology, with the release of the ACBC 2021-22 Social Justice Statement: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor.
The first prayer comes from a prayer card titled Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, and goes as follows:
Lord, when we listen with your ears we hear:
the bush grown more silent,
the birdsong less vibrant,
the stream’s sluggish ripple. Have mercy and open our ears.
Lord, when we look with your eyes we see:
the soil depleted,
the sky smudged,
the oceans rubbished and the great currents slowed. Have mercy and help us to see.
Lord, when we look with your eyes we see:
the workers who struggle to get by,
the women subjected to violence,
the people who are excluded. Have mercy and help us to see.
Lord, when we listen with your ears we hear:
the sound of hungry children,
the distress of the mentally ill,
the silent pain of homeless women and men. Have mercy and open our ears.
During this Season of Creation, I would invite you to download and read the Social Justice Statement, and to download and share the resources and prayers with your family and your community, which can be accessed by clicking down below:
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Changes by you
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This notice should be given to us in the first instance.
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It is your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient clear funds available in your account to allow a debit payment to be made.
If there are insufficient clear funds available in your account to meet a debit payment:
you or your account may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
you or your account may be charged a fee to reimburse us for charges we have incurred for the failed transaction;
you must arrange for the payment to be made by another method
Please check your account statement to verify that the amounts debited from your account are correct.
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If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account you should call us on 1800 047 703 and confirm the details in writing with us as soon as possible so that we can resolve your query quickly.
Accounts
You should check:
with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available from your accounts offered by financial
your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent account statement; and
with your financial institution before completing the direct debit request if you have any queries about how to complete the direct debit
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an account you do not have authority to operate; or
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We will keep any information (including your account details) in your direct debit request confidential.
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Our diocesan logo is theologically rich and very succinct. As a hand, it depicts our mission as a diocese and as individuals within the diocese, of bearing (bringing, carrying) Christ’s love to one another and to the world around us. In this, we are the hand of Jesus Christ, and we are offering ourselves to him so that he might work through us.
We can be the bearers of his love only as a response to his call and in the strength of his grace. We are reminded of this in two ways—through the symbol of the dove (the Holy Spirit) also present in the logo, and by the incorporation of the cross that segments the logo. The presence of the cross is a reminder that bearing the love of Christ will inevitably cost us if we live it authentically. However, in the way that the Cross is the portent of redemption and life—an echo of the tree of life in the book of Genesis—so becoming bearers of the love of Christ will also bring us to life.
The four fingers of the hand also represent the four regions of our diocese. The first is bluerepresenting the beautiful water of the Shoalhaven. The second is a blue and green combination representing the waters and escarpment of the Illawarra. The third is greendepicting the hills and plains of the Macarthur. The fourth is dark green illustrating the forests of the Southern Highlands.
