The Lay Community
of Saint Benedict
Day 31 - Friday of 4th week of Lent
Planting trees is a sign of harmony between us and creation and a sign of hope in a greener future, of habitable space for future generations.
Nicholas Holtam: Sleepers Wake, SPCK Publishing
Peter Stott
Day 30 - Thursday of 4th week of Lent
Three little words to keep us constantly in touch with God throughout the day :
Thank you ,
please,
sorry.
Erik Pearse
Day 29 - Wednesday of 4th week of Lent
‘In all of the natural world, we see the Vestigia Dei, which means the fingerprints or footprints of God.’
Richard Rohr
Clare Morgan
Day 28 - Tuesday of 4th week of Lent
Live simply, live sustainably, live in solidarity.
Lord God , teach us true humility and real compassion.
Margaret O'Leary
Day 27 - Monday of 4th week of Lent
Our favourite things in creation:
• a sunrise on a cold frosty morning
• the ocean
• trees - specifically, when you see a bunch of trees when the leaves have grown back and they look really nice and green
• sunshine at the beach
• the smell of wet grass on a sunny morning
LCSB Teens Group
Day 26 - 4th Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday - Mothering Sunday
Day 25 - Saturday of 3rd week of Lent
"How can you buy the sky?" Chief Seattle began.
How can you own the rain and the wind?
"My mother told me, every part of this earth is sacred to our people. Every pine needle. Every sandy shore. Every mist in the dark woods. Every meadow and humming insect. All are holy in the memory of our people.”
Speech by Chief Seattle 1854
Deryn Stewart
Day 24 - Friday of 3rd week of Lent
"At every sunset and every sunrise, I saw from the space station how thin the earth’s atmosphere is. We see the atmosphere obliquely when the sun is low on the horizon and shining through it and it’s the tiniest strip of gas, just 16km thick, and this really reminds you that if it weren’t for that strip of gas, earth would be like Mars or Venus and this would be a hostile planet."
Tim Peake: Homesick Planet BBC Radio 4; broadcast Friday 3 March 2023
Photo:NASA
Day 23 - Thursday of 3rd week of Lent
“ This is true religion, that everyone, according to their station, should borrow from this frail world as little as possible of food, clothes, goods and all worldly things."
The Ancrene Rule ("Rule for Anchoresses"),
quoted on the Root and Branch website
Peter Stott
Primula Vulgaris - Wikipedia
Day 22 - Wednesday of 3rd week of Lent
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty,
not pollution and destruction.
from Laudato Sí prayer
Catherine Stott
Stock image
Day 21 - Tuesday of 3rd week of Lent
Carmelites have altitude...and attitude;
they embrace many environments.
Claiming Elijah and Mary as godparents,
they look down on Oxford from Boars Hill.
Their watchwords of:
the cross; silence;
empty space;
and love
illuminate Lent and Easter.
Following Madre Teresa,
Carmelites are primed to include, to respect:
"In this house,
all must be friends,
all must be loved,
all must be held dear,
all must be helped.”
Mike Woodward
Day 20 - Monday of 3rd week of Lent
"Our sins are nothing but a grain of sand alongside the great mountain of God's mercy."
St. John Vianney
James Westlake
James Westlake - Hawaii landscape
Day 19 - 3rd Sunday of Lent - Rest Day
Day 18 - Saturday of 2nd week of Lent
‘We need to be silent, we need to listen, and we need to contemplate … Contemplating and caring: these are two attributes that show the way to correct and rebalance our relationship as human beings with creation.’
Pope Francis: General Audience 16 September 2020, Vatican Media
Day 17 - Friday of 2nd week of Lent
‘Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and Clouds and Storms, and all the weather,
through which you give your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water,
she is very useful, and humble, and precious and pure.’
St Francis: Canticle of the Sun
Anna Mace-Leska
Day 16 - Thursday of 2nd week of Lent
May we learn to look at your beautiful world with the gaze of a child.
Helen Healy
Day15 - Wednesday of 2nd week of Lent
Love the world around you. Let's not waste the planet.
Janet Lees
Bob Warwicker - Cross Wise Trees
Day 14 - Tuesday of 2nd week of Lent
We are all children of God, each of us chosen by Him and as such we are entitled to use the same defence as the son of God did himself. So, just like Jesus, let us store scripture and know how to use it. And, may we not veer into the wilderness and temptations of daily life but keep our eyes on God in everything we do, think or say.
Derek Gallagher
Peter Walker - Doves of Peace - Rochester Cathedral
Day13 - Monday of 2nd week of Lent
Laudato Sì - praise be to Thee - everything that is - from mosses to stars - lands thriving, lands in sorrow - each and every place, large or small, that we inhabit for this brief life - paying attention to all this: that everything is prayer.
Carmela Hinckley
Photo: Greg Rakozy, Unsplash.com
Day 12 - 2nd Sunday of Lent - Rest Day
Day11 - Saturday of 1st week of Lent
“Creation is the song of God.”
“Every creature is a glittering,
glistening mirror of divinity.”
St Hildegard of Bingen - 1098-1178
Mary Hirst
Photo: Jonny Gios: Unsplash.com
Day 10 - Friday of 1st week of Lent
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1: 11 - 12
Julia Guest
Day 9 - Thursday of 1st week of Lent
“Each act has webs of cause and effect that ripple out, reverberating and shifting … unwritten histories.”
Bella Lack: The Children of the Anthropocene
(Penguin Life)
Sr Phillipa (Stanbrook Abbey)
From the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) magazine
Day 8 - Wednesday of 1st week of Lent
"Lack of equipment should not mean that you are unequipped, for you will carry skills and experience with you, but those skills and experience must not be allowed to get rusty and you must extend your knowledge all the time." Collins Gem SAS Survival Guide
Deryn Stewart
Photo: Antarctic Photo Library, US Antarctic Programme
Day 7 - Tuesday of 1st week of Lent
“What are the gifts you most want for the young people you love?” (Nicholas Holtam: Sleepers Wake)
The degradation of the natural world that we are now witnessing, and indeed to which we are now contributing, will be felt much more by our grandchildren and their children than by us. Young people across the world are demanding change. We owe it to them to play our part in making that change happen.
Peter Stott
Day 6 - Monday of 1st week of Lent
Waiting for new life.
Barbara Simon
Day 5 - 1st Sunday of Lent - Rest Day
Day 4 - Saturday after Ash Wednesday
‘The desert will bloom with flowers’ Isaiah 35:2
A visit to the Anza-Barrego desert in the US where the flowers bloomed this month for the first time in 4 years. They were waiting for the exact combination of rain, cool and sun.
We pray that the seeds of renewal for the work of climate change will blossom when the time is right.
Adam Simon
Day 3 - Friday after Ash Wednesday
We live surrounded by majestic trees: beech, ash, oak, yew. But like us they experience stress and strain. Beauty and graciousness coexisting with struggle and pain.
Tim Livesey
Day 2 - Thursday after Ash Wednesday
The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy - and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation - and we scientists don’t know how to do that.
Gus Speth: The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Christ
to Sustainability (Yale University Press)
Annual Global Temperatures from 1850 - 2017
Ed Hawkins NCAS University of Reading
Ash Wednesday
Ash is a strange symbol with which to mark a beginning, but here we are, at the beginning of Lent, using ashes to remind ourselves of the journey we are about to undertake.
Elizabeth Serpell
The Caring for Creation group invites you to contribute to a Lenten Calendar. We’re just looking for a short reflection of one or two lines (about 50 words) that will help us deepen our response to God’s call to care for his world.
If you’d like to include a picture (500 kb minimum) that would be lovely, but not essential.
We will start on Ash Wednesday and hope to have a reflection for every day of Lent. We need your contributions to make possible our Lenten journey of hope and love for our beautiful world.
