PARAGUAY

Lambare

Sister Noemi tells us how, at the beginning of Creation Time, people close to the Santa Juana Antida de Lambare Center, along with other community organizations, held a prayer meeting in Villa Angelica’s Plaza San José to call for peace and justice for Katia, a young victim of violence.

Together they continue to work for “peace and justice”.

At the Sta Juana Antida Center in Lambare, we celebrated the time of Creation with great enthusiasm. We recycled plastic bottles, built planters and went out to find our own seedlings to care for and grow them. We took care of our garden and took time to take care of ourselves as well. We enjoyed a walk to Ñu Guasú Park to enjoy the creation and our friends. We also learned about our passion and history by visiting the Conmebol museum. We did modeling work to get in touch with our ability to resemble the creator, we got in touch with our land.

Season of Creation videos also arrive from Paraguay.

“We sow seeds of awareness in children to raise people with a sense of belonging and love for the earth.”

Triunfo

“A dream dreamed alone is just a dream. A dream dreamed together can become reality,” goes a well-known phrase. And this was demonstrated once again by 30 families from the Cristo Rey community in Triunfo Km 4, Natalio district, Itapuá, Paraguay, who despite being on the Guaraní aquifer and the banks of the Paraná River had no drinking water. They had already made several attempts when they shared this dream with sister Clemencia and sister Celestina of the Sisters of Charity there. Together they began to organize, a family donated the land at the height where they would dig the well and put the reservoir, they received the solidarity of the India Group, and they began the digging with great joy and enthusiasm. They arrived at a depth of 310 meters and the flow of water emerging was not enough, so with great sadness they had to abandon the work, but not the hope…. After several meetings we set off again, one family donated the land for the well, another family donated the land for the reservoir, the municipality helped with the drilling, the Friends of Novara Onlus collaborated with the materials for the network, and everyone’s contribution plus the work of the community ensured that the water arrived at the door of every home.

And this achievement had to be celebrated.

Thus, as part of Season of Creation, the well and net were blessed and officially inaugurated on Saturday, September 16. They prayed together:

“Lord, almighty God, who are the source and principle of life of body and spirit, deign to bless + this well that we will use with responsibility and care, so that under your protection and grace we may be free from sickness and be able to share with joy and solidarity. Bless us and our families, reward our efforts, give us the joy of singing together, and let peace, harmony, justice, respect, dialogue and solidarity flow from our hearts like a river, just as water flows from the well. Amen.”

And as the people say “de la mística a la Mastica”… after the prayer a delicious barbecue was shared next to the well, under the shade of beautiful trees.

This side of the world… September 21 is the beginning of spring and is a great opportunity to reflect during Creation Time.

We believe that from an early age we can “get to work” to make our planet a better place, starting from where we live….

So, with the children of Cristo Rey Support School, in Triunfo Km 4 of Paraguay, we started by visiting the surroundings of the dining hall, chapel and support and talked about what we could do to make them more beautiful.

And here is the result.

Closing Season of Creation, the children of Triunfo School Support wanted to beautify the playground and classroom… Everyone was pleased with the results…

Fernando de la Mora

At the St. Francis of Assisi Center 16, St. Catherine Parish in Fernando de la Mora, a Laudato Si’ Mass was celebrated on Saturday, September 23, which concluded with a drawing contest with two jurors, sister Laura and sister Raquel, who were highly appreciated by the community.

The coordinator of all these activities was Deacon Arnaldo Ramirez.

BOLIVIA

Sucre

The Sisters of Charity of Sucre, together with a group of teenagers and young people, experienced a morning of fraternity as they walked to Cerro CHURRUQUELA to become aware, pray, praise and above all thank God for helping them strengthen the small gestures that contribute to the care of the Common Home.

The urgent challenge of protecting our common home includes the concern to unite the whole human family in the quest for sustainable and integral development. When the heart is authentically open to a universal communion, nothing and no one is excluded from this fraternity. We must open our hearts to receive God’s living water of justice and peace to share with our suffering brothers and sisters, with all creatures around us and with the whole of creation.

ARGENTINA

Buenos Aires

Villa Corina, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Regardless of the age or size of your flower bed, we can all do our part.

Villa Corina

Children at Casa del Niño y la Niña El Campito, in Villa Corina, Argentina, took care of the institution’s garden and recycled, a way to reduce waste. Small gestures of love

Colon

Santa Marta School, Colon, Argentina Giving blood is also a way of giving love…it is done from the heart…without looking at who…bringing out the hero that beats inside each of us. With these and other phrases, Colegio Santa Marta students encouraged the community to come to the institution’s headquarters to give.

The young students, teachers and accompanying Sisters of Charity prepared with care and affection so many details that made this day a gift for the heart. The collection took place on September 12.

BRAZIL

Puerto Triunfo

Overcoming the heat of this Sunday, September 24, which reached 40 degrees, the youth of Puerto Triunfo gathered under the shade of leafy trees in the courtyard of the sisters’ house.

They began with a time of prayer led by Sister Celestina, letting the creation psalm enlighten them and taking time to save a symbol of nature to reflect them.

This Time of Creation is an opportune time to continue to deepen the message of the encyclical Laudato Si’. Aware that the Lord calls each of us to “work in his vineyard”, to listen to the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”, conversion of heart and a new way of life are needed.

With the dynamics of the clock, sister Elina led the next moment, in which everyone was able to work on their daily lives, how they spend their time, how they use media, how they care for their relationships, how they use their energy, and how they can work with others. In the end we all felt called to transform ourselves to take steps toward a simpler, more united and fraternal life.

Together they prepared mass in the company of sister Mery to celebrate Bible month, youth week and the feast of St. Vincent de Paul.

They prepared an environment with natural elements without destroying their life cycle…. They encouraged, before the start of the Mass, a moment of silence by listening and feeling the nature around us, listening and feeling our own heart, listening and feeling the breath of the brother who was next to us trying to get into harmony. They also made a gesture at the entrance of the Word that was passed from hand to hand, from one generation to another through the representatives of the 5 neighboring communities as a commitment to make the Gospel the guide of our lives. We concluded by remembering our baptism with the blessing of holy water.

In this way we made our hearts burn and set our feet on the path of Mission Brazil 2024.