Parish Community Members Care for Our Common Home

In October of 2015, Holy Family/St. Lawrence parishioners, in Essex Junction, Vermont, formed a discussion group in response to Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’. Named after the Pope’s work, this group continues to meet biweekly to read, pray, study, and to discuss the Pope’s earth-themed messages. Julie Thompson, a member of the Holy Family/St. Lawrence parish since 2007, spoke about her inspiring experiences as a part of this group.

Like many of the group members, Julie emphasized that she joined because the environment is important to her. However, while taking care of the environment is a major focus of the group, Julie noted that the Pope’s book “wasn’t just about the environment, it was about our social environment, too, and how we interact with each other.” For this reason, it is important to the group to become an active presence within the community. This is also a challenge. Julie mentioned that “the hardest thing, is figuring out a way to practice what we’ve learned and to share what we’ve learned.”

This challenge continues to bring the group together for brainstorming sessions. There has been talk of organizing a nature walk in the spring. Additionally, at the end of February, a meeting with the Chittenden Solid Waste District will take place in order to hammer out details on making the parish hall kitchen and its users more environmentally responsible.

Laudato Si’ is just starting out, and despite its challenges Julie was very optimistic, “I think we’ve got a lot of smart, motivated, intentional people that are part of this group, and I think we have a lot of people that can make things happen.” Just like many things in history, she pointed out, even if something starts small, it can become something big. “Facebook wasn’t Facebook overnight, it started small and it spread. And something like this might be able to spread too.”