SFA’s ‘Clean Me Up’ mission

CHERAS: Pope Francis has designated Sept 1 as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. The day of prayer, the Pope said, will give individuals and communities an opportunity to implore God’s help in protecting creation and an opportunity to ask God’s forgiveness “for sins committed against the world in which we live.”

Francis said he was instituting the prayer day for Catholics because he shares the concern of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who initiated a similar prayer day for the Orthodox Church in 1989.

Francis said Christians want to make their special contribution to safeguarding creation, but to do that, they must rediscover the spiritual foundations of their approach to earthly realities, beginning with an acknowledgement that “the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from nature,” but lived in communion with all worldly realities.

The ecological crisis, he said, is a summons “to a profound spiritual conversion” to a way of life that clearly shows they are believers.

Quoting his encyclical, Laudato Si, he said, “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”

The parish gathered in the friary on Sept 1 from 9.00am to 12 noon for prayers for creation. For the whole month of September, the Guided Rosary for the Care of Creation was recited in all the Sunday Masses.

On Sept 22, the parish carried out a social activity in cleaning the beach at Pantai Remis in Kuala Selangor. Two buses of volunteers left SFA at 6.30am, followed by the others in their own transport.

The theme for the activity was Care for Creation. Most of the rubbish we found were Styrofoam and other plastic materials. The youths also dug up four tyres which were fully submerged in the sand.

When our work was done, we said a prayer, took group photos and had light refreshments before returning home.

You could see the happy faces of the parishioners which was proof that they had had a fruitful and fun day.

Parish priest Fr Andrew Manickam OFM Cap explained that Pope Francis expressed his passion for nature in his encyclical letter Laudato Si and added that St Francis of Assisi is the patron of ecology. He also said that we should take care of our home and that this would be an on-going event.

My friends, Gabriella, Laura, Abigail, Jayden and I had fun picking up shells and drawing pictures in the sand. We hope that there will be more activities like this in future. –By Fr Andrew Manickam OFM Cap and Trasilla Annette SM Andrew

Article reproduced from Herald Malaysia online