Communities in Western Sydney showcase their care for our common home.
From May 16 to 24, Catholic communities around the world are celebrating Laudato Si’ Week.
Laudato Si’ Week – which marks the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical – is sponsored by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and is meant to encourage Catholic communities to take bolder actions for creation during the week-long initiative.
Ahead of Laudato Si’ Week, Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, Bishop of Parramatta and Chair of the Bishops Commission for Social Justice – Mission and Service, recorded a video message, encouraging the faithful to “have the courage to align ourselves with God’s plan for the world.”
To commemorate Laudato Si’ Week, Catholic Outlook has reached out to parishes, schools and faith movements to share how they are caring for our common home.
Parramatta Young Christian Workers
At the Parramatta Young Christian Workers (YCW), we are taking action with the introduction of a range of climate justice projects including vegan cooking classes, environmental documentary reviews, social inquiries and reviews and engaging our Facebook community to keep everyone updated.
This project began when we realised that a lot of the YCW members held climate justice quite close to their hearts and are passionate about this issue. They felt that if they did not take action now, that future generations will not be able to live the same quality of life that we do now. Soon after this, we put together a climate justice coordination team which was made up of three people. The way these projects came to be is that we reviewed the YCW Methodology of See, Judge, Act so that the team was able to gather an accurate understanding of what’s happening and what needs to happen to make this situation just. The outcomes of these results are a focus on conscious eating, sustainability and education.
The call to “care for our common home” is something that all YCW members hold great value to. We bring these same values into everything which we do. As the call to “care for our common home” talks about working in unity with everyone, we are all equal on this earth so let’s work towards a community where we are working towards a common good.
The community reacted strongly to our projects with our vegan cooking classes selling out after only a few days of advertisement. Once completed, it left everyone who attended eager and passionate to be more involved and to start taking action in their personal lives.
Parramatta YCW is in the process of planning sustainability classes which will be paired up with running a community garden. The classes will teach practical skills which would allow people to take personal action in their own lives at home to reduce their carbon footprint.
Thomas Magri is a member of the Parramatta Young Christian Workers.
Keep an eye on Catholic Outlook and on the Diocese of Parramatta’s Facebook and Instagram social media channels throughout this week as we share stories to mark Laudato Si’ Week.
