Praying with Pope Francis for Our Common Home

Our Common Home 14 Loving God of Creation, you saw everything that you had made, “and behold it was very good” (Gen 1:31) . Every man and woman is created out of love, made in your image and likeness (Gen 1:26) . Th e biblical stories of your creation suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with you, our God, with our neighbour and with the earth itself. Th ese three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us, and this is sin. Loving God of Creation, have mercy on us and help us. God of Harmony, the harmony between you, our Creator, humanity and creation as a whole is disrupted when we presume to take your place, O God, and refuse to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. Loving God of Creation, have mercy on us and help us. God Who Calls Us Forward, we have distorted our mandate to “have dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28) , to “till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). Loving God of Creation, have mercy on us and help us. Based on Pope Francis’, “On Care for Our Common Home,” Laudato Si, paragraphs 65-66