Dear Creation Care Ministry team members & supporters:

Happy belated “Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!” I hope you were able to join us at our parish’s celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As you know, pieces of creation appear everywhere in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe: star constellations, the moon, roses (Rose of Castile variety), etc.

This is a friendly invitation to our monthly meeting happening tomorrow night, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. Where: Rm.#119 (Parish Center). Time: 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tomorrow night’s meeting is our closing one for the year: 2023, :).

Updates to offer you: This weekend, we will be kicking off our yearly Care for Creation Ministry Photo (2023-2024). This year’s contest theme is: Rethink before you throw away! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Upcycle Contest Dates: December 17, 2023 to Feb. 4th, 2024

At our meeting, we will talk about how to engage our parish family to participate in our ministry-sponsored photo contest. One of our goals for our photo contest is to have our parish family learn & adopt at-home behaviors to care for creation for 2024!

Likewise, at our meeting, we will brainstorm ways to connect our ministry vision for 2024 (e.g., ministry activities) to our Pastoral Plan with an emphasis on the Eucharist. Tentatively, we would like to uplift recycling across our parish-based fellowship activities and in our parish grounds. Attached you will find our Care for Creation Ministry brochure and the MSLRP Pastoral Plan document that has been made available to our parish family. This document will guide our next steps.

Lastly, this coming weekend (Sat., Dec. 16, 2023, 9:00-11:00 a.m.), the County of San Diego (“I Love A Clean San Diego” Initiative), one of our partner organizations for creation care, will be hosting a local cleanup event at Libby Lake Park, Oceanside (about a five-minute drive from our parish). For event details, click on the blue button below this note.

Note that you must register for the Libby Lake Park cleanup event on your own. Please, be especially mindful of your physical limitations, and of the uneven terrain at the site (Libby Lake Park, Oceanside), as you consider participating in this event hosted by our community partner “I Love A Clean San Diego.” FYI: Tony Martinez will be participating in the cleanup event.

“Our faith instills in us a sacred duty to cherish not only our human family, but also the fragile ecosystem that cradles us.” Taken from “Abu Dhabi Interfaith Statement for Conference of Parties, COP28 (United Nations climate summit in Dubai),” Dec. 3, 2023. Interfaith Climate Statement Statement signed by Pope Francis

MSLRP’s Creation Care Manty, Caroline, Claudia & Tony