When I first read “Laudato Si’,” I was still in the early stages of my reversion to the Catholic faith, and it gave me a completely new lens on church teaching. Pope Francis’ vision of interconnectedness didn’t just inform my thinking — it transformed my heart.
When I reached Chapter 6, “Ecological Education and Spirituality,” I felt as though lightning had struck. “Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start,” Pope Francis wrote. “No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us.” (205) I truly felt called to love in a new, creative and radical way.
Inspired, I planted native species in my neighborhood. I picked up trash when I saw it. I reduced my waste: I switched to cloth napkins, avoided plastic wrap, repaired my clothes and furniture. These might sound like small shifts, but for me, they were acts of discipleship — creative and joyful expressions of faith.
As I continued to pray with the invitation of “Laudato Si’,” I found myself moved by the creativity that Christian spirituality invites as we consider our call to care for creation. Applying the encyclical’s principles to daily life requires imagination.
Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, the Holy Father called on everyone to reimagine our place in the world and our relationship with creation. He spoke not only as a pope, but as a fellow human being who saw the urgent need for a new way of living.
Over time, “Laudato Si’” reshaped my faith. I learned that caring for our common home wasn’t about buying plastic-free goods but learning creative ways to buy as little as possible! I initially adopted a vegan lifestyle, but over the past decade I’ve learned to express “eating in solidarity” in new ways: accepting what is served to me even if it’s not vegan, choosing the least popular dish at a potluck, saving food from waste.
But then came the pandemic and with it a loss of that creative spark. Stress and disruption dulled my purpose. Living in a dense urban environment made low waste living harder. A high-stress job made it nearly impossible. Over the past year, I’ve been on a journey to recover that creative spark. In that process, I’ve rediscovered the joy of integral ecology: loving all creatures and seeing creation care as central to my vocation.
Eventually, I stepped away from that job, moved to a new state and let go of many materialistic habits. Only then did I rediscover the joy and simplicity of this lifestyle.
Solidarity isn’t just a principle; it’s a way of life. And integral ecology is essential to living it out.
I’ve come to understand that my own flourishing is deeply tied to a thriving planet — and that the connection runs both ways. When I’m not well, my habits often harm the world around me. Stress leads me to order takeout instead of cooking, piling up plastic containers and wasting food. When I’m overwhelmed, I withdraw indoors and forget how grounding a walk in fresh air can be. When I feel insecure or self-pitying, I chase comfort through consumerism — another outfit I don’t need, another package on the doorstep. These moments might seem small, but they reveal a deeper truth: When I neglect care for my soul, I end up neglecting the Earth and my most vulnerable brothers and sisters, too. My well-being and the planet’s are woven together: neglect for one leads to neglect for the other.
The Catholic Church’s social teaching continues to evolve, integrating new challenges and insights. As paragraph 63 of “Laudato Si’” tells us clearly: “Technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups” (107).
I find myself asking: Do I want to depend so much on technology that I can’t navigate my own neighborhood without an app? What does that say about me, and what world would I be building? Perhaps getting lost once in a while will not only help me know my world better but allow me to be ready to be a better neighbor within it.
Without intentional simplicity, I drift toward convenience over care, distraction over attention. And when that happens, both my soul and our common home suffer.
The urgency has only grown — as evident by the fact that only eight years after “Laudato Si’” Pope Francis released “Laudate Deum,” a sobering follow-up that confronts how far we’ve fallen short. Once again addressing “all people of good will,” this apostolic exhortation calls us to honest self-examination. Have we truly taken this call seriously?
In these 10 years, the most honest reflection is that we haven’t done enough, myself included. But Pope Francis reminds us that even small efforts matter: “We must not think that these efforts are not going to change the world. They benefit society, often unbeknown to us, for they call forth a goodness which, albeit unseen, inevitably tends to spread” (212). I believe with all my heart that the small “Laudato Si’”-inspired choices I make each day have a ripple effect of goodness in our world — if nothing else by transforming my own heart to choose simple, personal actions out of love for God and neighbor.
Because above all, “Laudato Si’” is a call to love. It invites us to reflect on how we live our faith in the world. Pope Francis wrote about his namesake: “Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise” (11).
I recently learned that St. Francis’ radical, Christ-centered life had such a profound cultural impact that it is considered a catalyst for the Renaissance’s art revolution. According to historians, Francis’ witness of Christ to the world was so compelling that people began to understand Jesus’s humanity in a new way. In the medieval period, much religious art portrayed Christ in a distant, divine, often symbolic manner. But during the Renaissance, influenced in part by St. Francis of Assisi’s model of Jesus incarnate and suffering, artists began to depict Jesus in more human, emotionally expressive and physically realistic ways.
I believe this is the kind of cultural transformation Pope Francis longed for. Only in this instance, it is an economic and ecological revolution that starts with you and me, one that disrupts the last 200 years of individualism, consumerism and production-at-all-costs.
It begins in our own hearts: “Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change. We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life. A great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal” (202).
We must discover a new way of living as a global community with one human heart: “When our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one. … We have only one heart” (92).
At the end of “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis calls his own reflection “both joyful and troubling.” Reflecting on our response of the past 10 years, perhaps I would offer that we should change “troubling” to “challenging.” But we can allow that challenge to open our own hearts and inspire us to a creative response today.
