Pope’s September prayer intention: For the cry of the earth

By Christopher Wells

Considering rising temperatures around the globe, we can say the earth has a “fever”, Pope Francis says in his video-message announcing this month’s prayer intention.

The earth “is sick”, he continues, “just like anyone who’s sick”.

“But are we listening to this pain?” he asks. “Do we hear the pain of the millions of victims of environmental catastrophes."

In his message the Holy Father notes that it is the poor who suffer most from these disasters, pointing especially to those forced to leave their homes due to floods, heat waves, or drought.

Our response, he continues, must be comprehensive, involving not only ecological but also “social, economic, and political” action.

“We must commit ourselves to the fight against poverty”, the Pope says, and to “the protection of nature” by making both personal and communal changes”.

Pope Francis’ prayer during the month of September – when the Church observes the “Season of Creation” – is “that each of us might listen with our hearts to the cry of the earth and of the victims of environmental disasters and climate change, making a personal commitment to care for the world we inhabit”.

Creation is groaning

The prayer intention for September was elaborated in collaboration with the Dicastery for the Promoting Integral Human Development.

In a press release accompanying the Pope’s video-message, the Dicastery’s prefect, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., says, “Creation is groaning. Its suffering is caused by humans who were originally its guardian and are now its subjugator”.

However, Cardinal Czerny points out, in his Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis invites Christians “to hope and to act with Creation, which we could translate as ‘living in faith’.”

The prefect’s comments are echoed by Fr Frédéric Fornos, S.J., the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which publishes the pope’s prayer intentions each month. “The earth is crying”, he says, as are the victims of environmental disasters and climate change.

Pope Francis, he concludes, “invites us to prayer, for only prayer can awaken our anaesthetised hearts”.