By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
ALLEN — Beneath the sprawling branches of surrounding trees, Gretchen Day can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. She has always found God in his creation, the Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church parishioner said — in the plants, the animals, all those things the Creator declared “good.” So, when she has opportunities to care for the Earth, she does; and that commitment led her to the Green Team.
Formed in 2022, the Our Lady of Angels Green Team is an active environmental arm for the parish’s Catholic Social Teaching ministry, a group that digs into the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching to bring Church doctrine into action at the parish level.
As part of the Catholic Social Teaching ministry, the group explored a program about air pollution and its negative effects on humanity. The program served as a catalyst for a subset of members in the group to form the Green Team, which has been hard at work to connect faith, ecology, and action at OLA ever since.
“I think a lot of people don’t see how interconnected everything really is, especially when you’re talking about Catholic Social Teaching and the different branches of that,” said OLA adult faith formation director Jennifer Hardee, who founded the Catholic Social Ministry group. Care of the environment affects the lives of human beings — especially poor and suffering populations — in a real and substantial way, she said, so it ultimately “comes back to the dignity of life and the love of God and his creation.”
Faith in action
Once or twice a year, with bags and trash pickers in hand, the Green Team makes its way to a local park for an organized cleanup. As the volunteers traverse the landscape, picking up stray wrappers and debris, they work to restore the park to its former beauty — unblemished by litter; but, Day noted, the goal of the project goes well beyond aesthetics.
“All the parks and areas we clean almost always have a waterway,” she said. “Well, what animals are in that habitat? What animals use that waterway? Where does that water eventually go? What lake does it go to? Who gets their drinking water from that lake?”
The cleanups, in other words, are far-reaching and holistic — a service to nature, but also to people.
“We’ve picked up anywhere between 15 and 30 trash bag-fulls every time that we’ve gone,” Hardee said; and those cleanups have attracted nearly 100 volunteers who have clocked more than 200 volunteer hours total.
The park cleanups are just one of the several active efforts the Green Team has advanced to care for creation — from encouraging recycling on the church campus to minimizing waste in its ministries.
“We’ve done a lot of promotion within ministries as far as sustainability and reducing waste,” Hardee said. “Probably our most successful venture in that has been the OCIA group.”
Volunteers with Order of Christian Initiation of Adults are taking steps to avoid contributing to the “throwaway culture” that Pope Francis warned against in “Laudato si’,” Hardee shared, by bringing washable dinnerware to monthly dinners, avoiding paper handouts, and encouraging the use of reusable water bottles.
“Quite a few ministries have picked it up to some extent,” she added.
The Green Team has also organized events with an eye towards educating parishioners who want to help the planet but may not know how.
“We did a Creation Care Food Fair,” Hardee said. “What we did is just set up stations where we did plant-based food samples, because that is a much more environmentally-friendly food choice.”
Cowboy caviar, vegan fudge, and meatless meatball were among the selection of plant-based provisions that parishioners could munch as they perused each table at the fair. A master gardener and master composter were also in the room to answer any questions: What is composting? How do you garden? What are the benefits?
“We had a full house for that,” Hardee said, “and a lot of people really liked that.”
These opportunities to actively protect the planet — through the Green Team’s cleanups, education, and so on — have been empowering, both for team members and for the community at large, Day said.
“Sometimes you can feel like you’re just one person,” she shared. “All of a sudden, you’re one person with hands and feet that can do something active.”
‘God’s world’
The sustainability efforts at OLA are part of a small but growing movement within the diocese to promote responsible stewardship of the Earth, recognizing the God-given command to care for creation.
“The first creation story in Genesis provides a beautiful hymn exalting the beauty of creation and the human person. God saw that everything he had created was good,” explained Juan Rendon, Diocese of Dallas Catholic Social Ministries director. “He gave the mandate to cultivate and care for the Garden of Eden.”
Entrusted with the care and keeping of creation, humans have a responsibility to act for its protection, he continued; and parishes can do a lot to lead the charge — from including care of creation in the prayers of the faithful each Sunday to planting trees on church campuses.
“It is important for parishes to do small projects that show a care of creation,” Rendon said. “Every small action, both on the liturgical-catechetical and civic levels, is important and meaningful.”
One parish taking up the call is St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Plano, which is responding to the “cry of the Earth,” as Pope Francis termed it in “Laudato si’,” through its “Mundus Dei” group.
“We have named our group ‘Mundus Dei,’ Latin for ‘God’s world,’ to remind ourselves that God created everything and everyone,” explained Mark Yoder, a founder of the group. “Our mission is to help parishioners understand ‘Laudato si’’ as part of Catholic Social Teaching and to provide opportunities for them to care for God’s creation.”
Mundus Dei began its efforts a year ago with an eight-week “Laudato si’” study group for parishioners, later hosting an Earth Day rosary for the destitute and our common home. The group also takes care to stock the church library with copies of “Laudato si’,” hoping to inspire other parishioners to take action to protect their shared planet.
While still at its beginning, Yoder said, Mundus Dei has big hopes for the future.
“We are planning five events for the coming Season of Creation,” he explained, including litter cleanups, a “Laudato si’” workshop, and a special Mass and prayer service for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology.
“This is the only world we have,” Yoder continued. “God created this world and all its creatures for the good of all, including those in the future; therefore, it is our responsibility to care for it.”
Cutline for featured image: Volunteers pose for a photo during an Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church Green Team cleanup at Watters Crossing Park in Allen on Feb. 5, 2023. (Courtesy photo)
