Caring for Our Common Home

Our faith is one that wants creation to be cherished and renewed. A whole new way of living opens up as a consequence of a personal and passionate relationship with Jesus. We get the grace to transcend ourselves (Laudato Si’, 208). We get new strength to care for others and for creation (LS, 217). We can live with a new horizon, embracing Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God, of a renewed and transformed world and ecosystem where we are all brothers and sisters, responsible to each other. In the 2023-2024 ministry year, our parish has taken many steps to identify areas where we can make a difference, adopt new ways of doing things to better care for our planet, and to create awareness of God’s call to care for His creation. 

• Joan Gulledge Park significantly increased our green space on campus, and provided a park for  parishioners to enjoy, as well as a habitat for wildlife.

• The Caring Ministry offers opportunities for parishioners to care for our environment by:

  • caring for a pollinator garden on our campus.

  • maintaining a stream that runs along the edge of our campus.

  • participating in Greener Lent, an initiative that encourages people to reduce their environmental impact by reducing meat consumption while also educating them about the impact of climate change on the poorest areas of the world.

• We’ve replaced the incandescent and fluorescent lighting in Ignatius Hall, Raphael Hall, and the church with LED lighting, and all future renovations that include lighting will use LED lighting. 

• We replaced the HVAC units in the church, preschool, and parish center with HVAC units that are more energy efficient. 

• We installed new water fountains throughout our campus. The new water fountains have water bottle fillers, eliminating the need for single use bottles.

• The Care For Our Common Home Ministry began in February. In addition to representing our parish on the Diocesan Care for Our Common Home Commission, they are reading, praying about, and discussing Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, with a goal of developing activities to help parishioners more fully understand our call to be stewards of God’s creation, our environment. 

• The parish office, school, and preschool  implemented a paper recycling program.