Lenten Journey Week 8: The Care for All Creation

The final week of our Lenten Journey (April 22-25) sees us shifting our attention to an examination of the Care for All of God鈥檚 Creation. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis鈥檚 Laudato Si鈥� and we would like to mark it, as well as the final week in our eight-week Lenten Journey, with a public presentation and display of photographs and pieces of art submitted by individuals throughout our community. Have we tweaked your interest? Please. We encourage you to read on.

Looking to Laudato Si鈥� for inspiration:

Laudato Si’ – On the Care for our Common Home – is the Holy Father鈥檚 seminal Encyclical Letter on the environment and human ecology. The letter is addressed to “every person living on this planet” and calls for a global dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet through our daily actions and decisions. The World Council of Churches and many environmental organisations of different faiths backgrounds welcomed the encyclical. It criticises consumerist driven, profit-seeking economies, and emphasizes acute sensitivity to debt, inequality, and poverty. It calls on all of us to play a part in building a more just and sustainable world. We see that right now, the whole world is hurting.

Several main themes run through the text:

• • Every single person on earth is connected by the very fact that we all inhabit the earth, which is our 鈥渃ommon home.鈥� However, how are we shaping the future of our planet? We have made it 鈥渓ook more and more like an immense pile of filth.”
  • Climate change is a global problem with serious implications; it represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.
  • The letter advocates seeking clean and renewable energy sources, a 鈥渂asic and universal human right鈥� to drinkable water, and more far-sighted practices that respect the earth鈥檚 biodiversity and seek to protect species that are close to extinction. 鈥淓ach year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever.鈥�
  • It points to media and the digital world that contribute to a sort of 鈥渕ental pollution鈥� through the production of 鈥渘oise and distractions of an information overload.鈥�
  • Modernity has been marked by an excessive anthropocentrism: more and more, human beings take on a self-centred position, focused exclusively on themselves and on their own power. This results in a 鈥渦se and throw away鈥� logic.
  • What is happening in our home concerns 鈥渞apidification鈥� 鈥� that is, 鈥渢he continued acceleration of changes affecting humanity and the planet combined with a more intensified pace of life and work鈥�. “Rapidification” is a lifestyle that must be reconsidered. This is not to denounce progress. Unsustainable production, consumption, and disposal is NOT progress.
  • The starting point is 鈥渢o aim for a new lifestyle鈥�. Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us, such as avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, recycling, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights.

As part of Week 8 of our 天美传媒 Lenten Journey, we are hosting a photography & art contest open to the 天美传媒 Community (current students, family members, and alumni).

Capture what 鈥淐are For All Creation鈥� means to you! Submit an original photograph or artwork (AI-generated images are prohibited) to reflect key messages that show:

• The incredible beauty of our physical world (e.g. photos of landscapes and natural environments near and far)
• The local biodiversity (e.g. flowers, fauna, insects, wildlife: ecosystems of all types)
• The importance of our waterways (e.g. rivers, ports, straights, seas and oceans)
• Challenges as a consequence of our lifestyles (e.g. the residual effects of human-physical interactions)
• Actions for positive change – examples of local initiatives (e.g. individuals, agencies, activities – food recycling, tree planting, reducing carbon footprint)

Deadline for submissions: Apr. 11, 2025

Click below to read the full contest details and submission form!