Focolare Media brings together the media network (New City Press publishing house, Living City newspaper, social media and communications) of the Focolare Movement in North America. Focolare Foundation was created in response to Chiara Lubich’s appeal to the Movement in North America for greater sharing and redistribution of financial resources.
During their visit to the United States in May 2025, Margaret Karram and Jesús Morán (President and Co-President of the Focolare Movement) met with the two Boards of Directors.
The event will take place on Monday, 22 September 2025 at 7.30 p.m. (Italian time) in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome (Italy). A video link from Jerusalem with Cardinal Pizzaballa is also planned. Follow the live broadcast here.
Violence – even verbal violence – seems to be increasingly characteristic of our age. On social media, divisions go viral and create even more hatred, accentuate polarization and shut the door on dialogue. It is not easy to break out of this cycle. Phil lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Laura is from Boston. Politically, they are on opposite sides, but they share the charism of unity and a commitment to living the Gospel every day. Here they recount how they have experienced that not only words, but also sincere listening can open gaps in the walls of the most stubborn convictions.
I don’t know if this has ever happened to you but sometimes, after a large forest fire, when everything is burnt, bare, covered in ash, lifeless, you can spot a small plant sprouting – right there, where everything seemed dead. When I notice this, I feel something beautiful: where life seemed to have ended, nature is stronger. It grows, triumphs, lives, even when it seems impossible. It is in those moments that I understand how wonderful it is to live on a planet capable of regenerating itself, despite its wounds.
But for how much longer will it be able to do so?
On 2nd July, the Message of the Holy Father Leo XIV for the X World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation which will be celebrated on Monday, September 1, 2025 was published. It is entitled Seeds of Peace and Hope. What a splendid legacy Francis left us with his Encyclical Laudato Sì published ten years ago: so current, important and precious. And I find it very beautiful that Pope Leo takes up this legacy by highlighting the month dedicated to the Care of Creation (1st September-4th October), which begins with this day of prayer.
But what does this Message actually declare?
Returning to the example of the forest fire, Leo XIV reminds us that, “Seeds are buried in the earth, and there, to our wonder, life springs up, even in the most unexpected places, pointing to the promise of new beginnings”. Then he addresses us, inhabitants of this world, reminding us that “in Christ we too are seeds”. Not only that, but “seeds of Peace and Hope”.
This is a strong and clear invitation to live the ecumenical initiative of the “Season of Creation” from 1st September-4th October. It is a month of initiatives to invent, prepare and implement so as to pay every more attention to the care of our “common home”, which we all inhabit, regardless of our differences. Pope Leo says, “Together with prayer, determination and concrete actions are necessary if this “caress of God” is to become visible to our world”. Further on he says, “we seem incapable of recognizing that the destruction of nature does not affect everyone in the same way. When justice and peace are trampled underfoot, those who are most hurt are the poor, the marginalized and the excluded. (…)By working with love and perseverance, we can sow many seeds of justice and thus contribute to the growth of peace and the renewal of hope”.
Everyone is called to participate: individually or in groups, in associations, organizations, companies… why not? Each with their own ideas, their own commitment.
In his Message, Pope Leo XIV writes: “The Encyclical Laudato Sì has now guided the Catholic Church and many people of good will for ten years. May it continue to inspire us and may integral ecology be increasingly accepted as the right path to follow. In this way, seeds of hope will multiply, to be “tilled and kept” by the grace of our great and unfailing Hope, who is the risen Christ”.
And what does the Pope do? He begins himself by promoting these initiatives first. He established, for the first time in the history of the Church, a “Mass for the Care of Creation”, made official through the Decree on the Mass pro custodia creationis. Pope Leo XIV used this new form already on 9th July, 2025 during a private Eucharist that he celebrated at the Borgo Laudato Sì, during his stay at Castel Gandolfo (Rome). From now on, anyone can ask to celebrate a Mass with this intention, to be faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to us: in our daily choices, in public policies, in prayer, in worship and in the way we inhabit the world.
The title Seeds of Peace and Hope today appears as a disarming prophecy. Perhaps they are the only two words that, in this dark time for humanity, continue to make sense. They are words that allow us to start again, to sow and to believe that that fresh grass will continue to grow even where the land seems scorched and dead. Actions like these make me understand that all the Churches do not change their minds about the essential questions for the life of humanity. And above all, that they do not stop thinking about the future of the new generations.
