The Care for Our Common Home Ministry at St. John Neumann Church in Reston wants to be more than just the recycling club. They hope to inspire the whole parish in the same way they were inspired by “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the environment. The ministry recently had the opportunity to contemplate more ways to integrate the church’s ecological teachings into the life of the parish when they enrolled in the Vatican’s Laudato Si Action Platform.
St. John Neumann is the first parish in the diocese to enroll in the platform, a program and associated website sponsored by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development that equips Catholic institutions, communities, families and households to implement Laudato Si’. Enrolling involves submitting a reflection document and an action plan for the first year. The action plan will be updated each year. The diocese already has enrolled.
“The whole point of integral ecology is fostering relationships with others, building your prayer life and having a healthy relationship with the creation God has given us,” said Janet Broderick, co-leader of the ministry. “If all our parishioners mindfully consider the way that we live — what we buy, what we eat, what we throw away, how we spend our time — that would be our primary goal.”
Drafting the plan involved collaborating with parish staff and other ministries to see how they could collectively further the mission. One collaboration led to a lot of dishwashing. St. John Neumann hosts a light reception for mourners after funerals at the parish. Ed Sabo and other members of the Care for Our Common Home Ministry wanted to make the gatherings more hospitable and sustainable by swapping out the plastic cutlery and disposable plates for real dishes.
“We do have a nice dishwasher in the kitchen, and so we offered to work with them and use our supply of real plates and cups and wash them afterward,” said Sabo. As the need grew, they invited any parishioner to help with the dishwashing and several volunteered. “Over the course of the year now, we have a great relationship with that ministry, and we found that it’s a lot of fun to meet parishioners you (only) see in church,” said Sabo. “It’s also very nice for the participants of the funerals, the families and friends — they’re very appreciative of drinking out of a real coffee cup.”
Their action plan has many other goals based on the needs of the parish, including moving to renewable energy, creating a policy guide on socially responsible purchasing for parish events, and hosting contemplative prayer services. “The best antidote against the misuse of our common home is contemplation,” said Broderick, quoting Pope Francis.
As they work to implement the action platform, Broderick and Sabo hope parishioners will take home what they see at the parish level, and even enroll their own families in the action platform. “There’s the idea of, who’s under my carbon footprint?” said Broderick. “Yes, I got these pants at a great price, but who paid for that? I think that’s the change of heart (needed) in the way that we interact with God, others and creation. That has a domino effect everywhere.”
Find out more
To learn more about the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, go to laudatosiactionplatform.org. To connect with the diocesan Care for Creation Network, email [email protected].
