At 10.00 today, at the Holy See Press Office, Via della Conciliaione 54, a press conference was held to present the new formulary of the Missa “pro custodia creationis”, which will be added to the Missae “pro variis necessitatibus vel ad diversa” of the Roman Missal.
The speakers were: His Eminence Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, O.F.M. secretary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
The following are their interventions:
Intervention of His Eminence Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J.
In the Roman Missal, there are 49 Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions. Twenty are for the Church, 17 for civil needs, and 12 for various occasions. Among the formularies “for civil needs,” today we are happy to introduce a “Mass for the care of creation” (Missa pro custodia creationis), in response to requests suggested by Laudato si’.
Over the past decades, the Church has continually affirmed the “mutual responsibility between human beings and nature” (LS 67). Thirty-five years ago, Pope St John Paul II released his ground-breaking Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation”. And ten years ago, Pope Francis published his even more revolutionary “Laudato si’: on care for our common home.”
Let us give thanks to God our Creator for this new formulary of prayers for the Mass; may it help us to learn how to care for His immense gift. Pope Leo XIV will use it next week for a Mass at the Borgo Laudato si’, Castel Gandolfo1. Following the liturgical norms, this formulary can be used to ask God for the ability to care for creation.
Creation is not an added theme but is always already present in the Catholic liturgy. As the Eucharist is celebrated, “the whole cosmos gives thanks to God... The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation” (Laudato si’, 236).
At every Mass, we bless God for the bread and wine we receive; they are both “fruit of the earth … fruit of the vine … and the work of human hands”. And every Sunday and Feast Day, our proclamation of faith begins: “We believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” God’s gift of life, from the beginning, is completed or fulfilled by Christ’s life, passion, death and resurrection.
The Missa pro custodia creationis begins like this: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 18:2). The Gospel speaks of “the lilies of the field and the birds of the air” (Matthew 6:24-34) or else recounts Jesus calming the storm at sea (Matthew 8:23-27).
With this Mass, the Church is offering liturgical, spiritual and communal support for the care we all need to exercise of nature, our common home. Such service is indeed a great act of faith, hope and charity.
This Mass is a reason for joy. It increases our gratitude, strengthens our faith, and invites us to respond with care and love in an ever-growing sense of wonder, reverence, and responsibility. It calls us to be faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to us – not only in daily choices and public policies, but also in our prayer, our worship, and our way of living in the world.
1 Video footage of the location is available for use here:
https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/66c727d5-b7b4-4e25-934c-68493132f658
Summary of Intervention of Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, O.F.M.
With the Encyclical Letter Laudato si' (24 May 2015), Pope Francis drew everyone’s attention - believers and non-believers alike - to the care of our common home, a theme taken up by the Apostolic Exhortation to all people of good will titled Laudate Deum (4 October 2023) on the climate crisis.
Creation in liturgy
The Easter mystery is made real throughout our sacred Liturgy. Every moment of the liturgical year celebrates the mystery of creation’s redemption, renewal and final fulfilment in the Easter of the Lord.
Truly, in the annual commemoration of Easter and every Sunday, in every Eucharistic celebration (as in the presentation of the gifts), in the Rogations, in the Four Tempora as well as in the individual sacraments, the Liturgy dwells upon God's creative action within the horizon of salvation history.
To the richness that the Liturgy already enfolds regarding the mystery of creation, we now add the Missa pro custodia creationis which, with the approval of Pope Leo, is henceforth included in the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia (2008). It will appear among the Missæ et Orationes pro variis necessitatibus vel ad diversa, Section 2 Pro circumstantiis publicis. Its use is regulated by Chapter VII of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani and its own rubrics (Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, p. 1074).
A formulary for a Mass for the care of creation
The title of the new form is inspired by the proper biblical hermeneutics to which Pope Francis has called us. In No. 67 of Laudato si' we read: '“Tilling” refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature'.
Verse 2 of Ps 18(19), chosen as the Entrance Antiphon (The heavens tell of the glory of God, / the work of his hands announces the firmament), opens the celebration by expressing wonder at how creation reflects the glory of God: without this wonderment "our attitude," writes Pope Francis, "will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters” of natural resources (LS 11).
The Collect prayer devoutly synthesises the theology of creation inspired by Holy Scripture: Christ is the first-born of all creation; the Father has called all things into existence; humanity is called to safeguard his work.
The Offertory Prayer takes up and amplifies the words of the presentation of the gifts in a manner that encapsulates the theological concepts that inspire our liturgical contemplation of creation. In very brief summary: the entire history of salvation, of which creation is the foundation and beginning, culminates in the Lord's Passover; the liturgy makes the paschal mystery present in a sacramental manner, renders it real and reveals its efficacy; in continuity with the logic of the Incarnation, what God has created and the work of human hands (bread, wine, oil, water...) reach their full meaning in the celebratory action; their nobility demands our contemplative gaze on created things, which changes our relationship with them. Verse 3 of Ps 97, the Communion Antiphon (All the ends of the earth have seen / the salvation of our God), accompanies the assembly nurtured at the Eucharistic banquet and contemplating the work of salvation that unites humans to all creatures,
With the Prayer after Communion we invoke the fruits of the mystery that has been celebrated. This prayer is inspired by Laudato si’ n. 66 where Pope Francis reminds us that there are ‘three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbour and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin'.
Communion with God, with one's neighbour, with the earth is nourished by the Eucharist, the "sacrament of unity", and it reaches towards its ultimate fulfilment, towards that fullness of communion in which all things will be new. Harmony with all creatures, which we contemplate in Francis of Assisi, can only arise, as it did for the Poverello, from an experience of reconciliation that makes communion with God and with our sisters and brothers possible.
The biblical readings chosen for the Missa pro custodia creationis offer several points for reflection.
The Book of Wisdom invites us to recognise the beauty of the Creator in that of creatures. This passage is echoed by the Responsorial Psalm that unites the assembly with creation that sings the glory of God.
The hymn from the letter of St Paul the Apostle to the Colossians offers a Christological reading of creation. The Responsorial Psalm is a song of blessing for God's creative work.
Two Gospel passages are proposed (Mt 6: 24-34: Look at the birds of the air ... Seek, first of all, the kingdom of God and his righteousness; Mt 8: 23-27: He arose and threatened the winds and the sea and there was a great calm).
In effect, the readings may be seen as presenting a "challenge" and an opportunity to commit to practicing the corrected hermeneutics of biblical texts that LS 67 emphasised. Without such correction, one risks supporting positions that are inconsistent with the truth of Revelation and holding, for example, the attitude that LS 69 defines as "distorted anthropocentrism".
In conclusion, the Missa pro custodia creationis takes up some of the main positions contained in LS and expresses them in the form of a prayer within the theological framework that the encyclical revives. The texts of this formulary are a good antidote against a certain reading of LS that risks reducing the depth of its content to a "false or superficial ecology" (LS 59) far removed from that "integral ecology" amply described and promoted in the encyclical (cf. LS chap. IV).
