FAITHFUL RESILIENCE AND OUR COMMON HOME
BY DIANA MARIN
In early April, more than 300 Catholic youth gathered at the California State capitol to advocate for climate justice. Organized by the California Chapter of the Laudato Si’ Movement and Jesuits West, these young people met with state legislators to call for fire resilience and prevention, water and habitat protection, and immigration. The gathering was an act of faithful resilience; participants collectively discerned the bills to advocate for, including ones offering aid to those affected by the LA wildfires, countering the pollution of waterways, and combating the growing ill will and restrictions placed upon immigrants.
These young people were prophetic pilgrims of hope, praying with their feet as they traveled from nearly every diocese in the state to Sacramento and lifting up their voices to cry with the earth and cry with the poor. And this action wasn’t a one-off: It was the first of dozens to come this year as we mobilize the Catholic community to be pilgrims of hope.
Early this year, the Los Angeles wildfires displaced thousands of people from their homes and killed dozens. Within days of the inauguration, the White House issued executive orders retracting environmental protections and dismantling decades of environmental regulations. When it comes to environmental action, the stakes are high.
And yet, there is much in which to have faith. As I think about the young people who gathered at the capitol and the model our faith provides of hope and environmental action, I am reminded of what it means to be resilient. Resilience isn’t just getting up after being knocked down to stubbornly do the same thing over and over again. Instead, it considers changing circumstances and reorients to faith. Our church provides countless examples of what this faithful resilience looks like and offers practices to build this spiritual muscle.
THE JUBILEE YEAR OF HOPE
2025 is the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home) and the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures. It is also the Jubilee Year of Hope. These three anniversaries serve as reflection points on how to build spiritual resilience at this point in time, especially as it relates to caring for our common home.
When St. Francis of Assisi penned the poem-prayer The Canticle of the Creatures (also known as The Canticle of the Sun) in 1225, he deepened an aspect of Catholic spirituality that finds gratitude for all things and sees all of creation as siblings. Praise permeates all of existence, because God is in all of existence. The poem lauds Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brothers Wind and Air, and Sisters Water, Earth our Mother, and Death.
St. Francis saw that God is inextricable from creation and thus all aspects of creation are to be praised. We are part of a greater ecological family. Eight hundred years later, our human-caused environmental crises reveal just how far we’ve strayed from St Francis’ vision of creation as family.
In 2015, Pope Francis began his encyclical Laudato Si’ with The Canticle of the Creatures, including the Canticle’s refrain—”praise be,” or “laudato si’” in its original Umbrian translation. “On Care for Our Common Home” was a landmark document that acknowledged the realities of the climate crisis and brought a moral lens to a conversation that, at the time, was predominantly scientific.
Furthermore, Laudato Si’ is credited for stirring global advocacy against climate change, including mobilizing the widespread adoption of the 2015 Paris Accord at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Among its key teachings, Laudato Si’ uplifts the concept of integral ecology, which holds that “everything is closely interrelated.”1 This interrelation means
that the climate crisis is not just an environmental issue but also a social and spiritual one. Further, it means that taking care of the Earth, our home, includes taking care of our neighbors, especially those most impacted by this crisis.
Finally, before his death Pope Francis designated this year, 2025, a Jubilee Year. A practice that dates back to Leviticus Chapter 25, Jubilee refers to a biblical law calling for the restitution of debt and land. As the Vatican explains on their website for the Jubilee Year, “[Jubilee] was intended to be marked as a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation, and involved the forgiveness of debts, the return of misappropriated land, and a fallow period for the fields.”2
Today, Jubilee Years in the Catholic Church are known as Holy Years. They are seen as a time during which God’s holiness transforms us and are characterized by pilgrimage, traditionally to Rome.
The theological premise of Jubilee as a time of financial and spiritual transformation, when viewed through the lens of today’s climate crisis, calls for making visible the intersections of climate change and power. Furthermore, Pope Francis named the theme of this Jubilee Year “Pilgrims of Hope.” This convergence invokes a transformation of our relationships to God, one another, and all creation, aided by the action of going on pilgrimage and fortified by the practice of hope.
PILGRIMAGES OF HOPE FOR CREATION
Traditionally, Catholics honor Jubilee Years by undergoing pilgrimages to Rome, often earning an indulgence for their efforts. Pilgrimage is a beautiful way to honor such monumental anniversaries and offer a way to foster spiritual growth, build community, and deepen our connection to God. In visiting a site of significance and being willing to be transformed in the process, pilgrimages are both acts of devotion and of spiritual fortitude.
This Holy Year, we are asking people to go one step further and to consider all of creation in their pilgrimages. Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation is a nationwide initiative launched in 2025 by a coalition of Catholic and creation care organizations in the United States. The initiative calls for Catholics and Catholic institutions to reflect upon the profound relationship between God, humanity, and creation and to take concrete steps toward healing the Earth. These pilgrimages enable a renewal of spiritual commitment to care for creation and to take action for our common home. The initiative culminates during the Season of Creation (September 1 to October 4, 2025), which is a time for prayer, reflection, and action focused on the environmental crisis facing our world today.
1. Pope Francis, “Laudato Si’,’” Vatican website, May 24, 2015, https:// www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/ papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
2. “What is the Jubilee?” Jubilee 2025, accessed June 6, 2025, https:// www.iubilaeum2025.va/en/giubileo-2025/segni-del-giubileo.html.
We hope to mobilize thousands of Catholics across the country to take part of pilgrimages in their communities, and we are actively encouraging individuals to sign up as local leaders organizing pilgrimages. The Sacramento Youth Advocacy Day mentioned earlier is one of many pilgrimages taking place under the Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation initiative.
The importance of the Jubilee Year, and of 2025 in general, is only amplified by Pope Francis’ death. Not only do we celebrate the various anniversaries this year offers, but now we also remember Pope Francis’ life and legacy. Care for our common home has never been more important.
As people who find God in all of creation, who praise God for all that is, and who know ourselves to be capable of transformation through God’s holiness, we are called this year 2025 to be pilgrims of hope, taking action for our common home and doing so with faithful resilience.
Diana Marin serves as the program manager for young adult mobilization at Catholic Climate Covenant, where she organizes young leaders from across the United States to engage in faith-based climate action. Previously, she served as theologian-in-residence for the Nuns and Nones Land Justice Project, convening Catholic sisters and millennial “nones” in conversations on land transitions rooted in ecological and racial healing.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
There are many ways that you can get involved in the Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation initiative:
Sign up for the monthly training series to learn how to join or start your own pilgrimage, work with the media, celebrate, and continue your journey. Register at: bit.ly/pilgrimagemonthly-training-series/
Join the mailing list to receive the latest resources, news, success stories, and our weekly newsletter, The Joyful Messenger. Sign up at catholicpilgrimsofhope.org/mailinglist-sign-up/
Sign up to join a pilgrimage in your area , and if there isn’t one, consider becoming a pilgrimage leader in your community by visiting catholicpilgrimsofhope.org/pilgrimageregistration/. (Regístrate en español: bit.ly/Formulario-de-Participación-en-laPeregrinación)
If you’re an organization, consider collaborating with us. Fill out an application at catholicpilgrimsofhope.org/ collaborating-organization-application
You can also strike up a conversation with us by emailing welcome@catholicpilgrimsofhope.org.