This week also marks an important anniversary in our Catholic calendar. On 24 May 2015 Pope Francis signed Laudato Si’, the watershed encyclical letter that called world’s attention to the increasingly precarious state of our common home. Five years on, the encyclical appears ever more relevant. The multiple “cracks in the planet that we inhabit” (LS, 163), from the melting ice caps in the Arctic to the raging wildfires in the Amazon, from extreme weather patterns around the world to unprecedented levels of loss of biodiversity that sustain the very fabric of life.  

Pope Francis’ prophetic words continue to ring in our ears: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (LS, 160) The poor communities around the world are already the early and disproportionate victims of the current ecological degradation and we cannot remain indifferent any longer to the increasingly desperate “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS, 49). The fifth anniversary of the encyclical comes in the midst of another watershed moment - a global pandemic - and Laudato Si's message is just as prophetic today as it was in 2015.

The encyclical can indeed provide the moral and spiritual compass for the journey to create a more caring, fraternal, peaceful and sustainable world.

Our School Prayer:

Dear Lord,

In everything that we think say and do today, may others see that you live in each one of us. Please help all of us at St Mary’s to show care, concern and mercy towards others. Mary our Mother look after us. Mary MacKillop pray for all our sick. Amen