Franciscan Sisters of Peace

Ps. 67 The earth has yielded its fruit
For God, our God, has blessed us.
May God give us his blessing,
As he revealed to all the ends of the earth. 

• Prayer Intention: God, Our Creator, is faithful,  warming the earth each spring to bring forth new life in pond and meadow. May we be faithful in giving thanks for the gift of life and doing all we can to preserve and protect it. 
• Action: Preserve social distancing during this critical time.  Plant bulbs, trim hedges, spruce up the yard!
•  Fun Fact About the Earth: There are 2 million species of plants and animals on Earth today -scientist suspect millions more to be discovered.

 Maturity is the ability to joyfully live in an imperfect world.
Richard Rohr*
 

• Prayer Intention:   Dive deeply into times of joy.  In our neighborhood we are watching our five and six year olds ride their first two wheelers. We’ve cheered them on from our porches and told stories about our own ‘learning to ride’ experiences. Pray for what gives you joy today! 
• Action:  Share a moment of joy with another person. 
• Fun Fact About the Earth: It’s the only planet to have soil.

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.
Annie Dillard*

• Prayer Intention:  We pray during this time of enforced social distance to appreciate the unfolding of nature around us and to truly appreciate those  with whom we share earth space: human and non-human. 
• Action:  Today contemplate the beauty of a flower, the song of a bird, the generosity of a friend or family member. Pray for generosity! 
• Fun Fact About the Earth:  The pole flip-flops – every 200,000 to 300,000 years, but an imperceptible process
   

Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.
 

• Prayer Intention:  As we go about our daily lives, look for new life among dead leaves.  Each day is an opportunity to experience a new birth, a new wonder. 
• Action: Take a bag on your daily walk and pick up some trash!
• Fun Fact About the Earth: The magnetic pole creeps – due to the sloshing of Earth’s liquid metal around its solid iron core

 
I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
Henry David Thoreau

• Prayer Intention: Pray for leaders to stay strong during this coronavirus crisis and take the difficult steps that will urge people to stay safe and stay at home. 
• Action: Plant at least 2 trees in 2020.  (Suggestion:  visit the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation online at https://www.ftpf.org/elsalvador)  JP & Global Environment are supporting this program! 
• Fun Fact About the Earth: It used to be purple? - Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to extract nutrients from the sun, possibly giving plants a violet color. 

We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us.
Annie Dillard
 

• Prayer Intention: Rejoice in simple pleasures. Pray for your neighbors in God’s global human family! 
• Action: Speak to my elected officials about climate change. 
• Fun Fact: Earth is covered with cosmic dust – constantly sprinkled from the heavens, about 100 tons of it a day.

 A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.
Wendell Berry

• Prayer Intention: We pray that we will be good neighbors and keep social distancing during this time of crisis.  At the same time, may we check on the vulnerable among us to make sure they have what they need. 
• Action: Use your creative imagination to reuse and recycle what you have, remembering that many do not have basic survival resources.
• Fun Fact about the earth: Another moon story - Many researchers think some large object crashed into Earth long ago and the resulting debris coalesced to form our moon.

Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind's
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer.
Wendell Berry

Grand Canyon, 1993

• Prayer Intention: Pray that our national parks will be preserved from leases to drilling and mining companies that will strip land that has been preserved to protect the natural environment for all people. 
• Fun Fact: It’s rare! – the only life-supporting planet in our solar system and, to date, only one of 700 planets that have been observed in our galaxy that can possibly support life as we know it.  
• Action: Walk, cycle, carpool, or use public transport

Whoever you are, not matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

• Prayer Intention: The UN reports that more than 1million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction. Pray to preserve wildlife habitats. 
• Fun Fact:  Our earth is 4.5 billion years old 
• Action: Refuse disposable plastic bottles, bags, straws, cutlery and cups! Say NO to single-use plastics. (Unfortunately in this time of coronavirus, we may not have the luxury of refusing all single use plastics!)