On July 9, at Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass according to the new formulary for the “Care of Creation” and spoke in the homily about the importance of protecting the ecological life God has entrusted to humanity.
According to a July 9 Vatican News report, Pope Leo said, “Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with created things and lead us out of the ecological crisis caused by the rupture of relationships — with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth — resulting from sin.”
The Mass was celebrated at the garden center of Laudato Si’ Village educational center and attended by the center’s staff, according to Vatican News. Reuters reports that several senior cardinals also attended the Mass. Pope Leo arrived at Castel Gandolfo July 6 for a period of rest and retreat, a longstanding papal tradition.
The Pontiff expressed sadness that many natural disasters are “often caused — at least in part — by human excess and our way of life” and called for prayers for the conversion of those “who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home.”
The Care of Creation formulary for the Mass was publicly decreed July 3 by the Dicastery for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. According to the Holy See Press Office, the dicastery’s Secretary Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, O.F.M., explained in a press conference that day that the formulary includes Scriptural readings and prayers related to the Christian responsibilities and view of creation.
Archbishop Viola said the Collect prayer for the Mass “devoutly synthesises the theology of creation inspired by Holy Scripture: Christ is the first-born of all creation; the Father has called all things into existence; humanity is called to safeguard his work.”
Overall, the archbishop explained, the formulary “takes up some of the main positions contained in [Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’] and expresses them in the form of a prayer within the theological framework that the encyclical revives.”
Reuters reports that the July 9 Mass also included a prayer for victims of the deadly flash flooding in Texas.
According to Vatican News, Pope Leo also said that the world is afflicted by global warming and violent conflicts, but Jesus offers hope.
“We have encountered it in Jesus, the Savior of the world. He still, sovereignly, calms the storm,” Pope Leo said.
He later noted that in calming the storms, as recorded in the Gospel, Jesus “reveals His power of life and salvation, which towers over those forces before which creatures are lost.”
Pope Leo concluded his homily by quoting from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’: “It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures.
“The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, He comes that we might find Him in this world of ours.”
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Author: McKenna Snow
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