Care for Creation

Our mission is to seek God through community life, prayer, ministry, and care for all creation.

Stained glass image of St. Benedict holding the earth.

In his Rule, St. Benedict invites us to treat all things as “vessels of the altar.” In his message for The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation for this year, Pope Francis reminds us that “the earth is entrusted to our care, yet continues to belong to God.” Mindful of this, we continue to seek ways to be better caretakers of the earth.

Our focus

Our earliest focus in this area was to look at alternate sources of energy. We installed our first set of 50 KW solar panels on the roof of Dooley Center. The second 50 KW set was installed on the roof of Sophia Center. The most recent set was installed near the garden, which gives us a total of 150 KW. All three sets are connected to our present electric grid to reduce our use of fossil fuels.

Set of solar panels we use to help reduce our fossil fuels.

Besides reducing our use of fossil fuels, we continue to practice organic gardening. Each summer, we plant tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, peppers, squash, radishes, beets, lettuce, kale, arugula, beans, and a variety of herbs. Our produce enables us to provide some fresh vegetables for our community meals. We know that our produce is chemical free and therefore healthy for us. In addition to our vegetables, we plant clover and hairy vetch (cover crops), which serve as food for our bees and put important nutrients back into our soil. Our bees have provided us with several hundred pounds of honey, most of which we use around the monastery or sell in our gift shop.

We continue to seek ways to become ecologically sustainable and know we still have work to do in many areas.

Laudato Si

In 2015, Pope Francis published the encyclical Laudato Si, in which he shared with the world his concerns about the care of our common home. Realizing the world’s responses to this encyclical have not been adequate, Pope Francis published a second encyclical entitled Laudate Deum in which he called climate change a global climate crisis and challenged all of us to recognize our interconnectedness to all of creation and to one another. In Laudato Si, he states,

“as part of the universe…all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.”
Pope Francis

Laudato Si Platform Goals

The encyclical Laudato Si inspired the Laudato Si Platform, which encourages organizations to achieve concrete and lasting solutions to the ecological crisis through seven goals. In March 2024, the Mount community voted to implement the following seven goals:

“All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture experience, involvements, and talents.”
Laudato Si