Catania (Italy). Laudato Sì “EtnaMain” Circle, of the Sicilian Province Mother Maddalena Morano (ISI), born on 25 February 2021 under the protection of the Salesian martyrs St. Luigi Versiglia and St. Callisto Caravario, is led by Sr. Maria Lucia Siragusa, Provincial Secretary and Laudato Sì Animator, who has fielded various initiatives for the care of the common home.
The EtnaMain Club is made up of about 50 participants: families, young people, and children from different Districts of the Sicilian Province. Networked with the Global Catholic Movement for Climate, other Laudato Sì Circles and Associations that deal with environmental protection, it addresses environmental issues related to the territory with simple but targeted actions.
The name EtnaMain combines the simple, familiar, and interdependent relationship that Mary Domenica Mazzarello, Co-founder of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Maín had with the Creator and with creation, with one of the characteristic natural elements of Sicily, the Etna volcano, which symbolizes significant and overwhelming activity.
Laudato Sì EtnaMain Circle is aimed especially at the new generations, so that they can establish a relationship of fraternity with creation and creatures and learn to act consciously and responsibly for the construction of a more just and cleaner world.
Among the initiatives of the Circle, the increasingly reduced use of plastic-containing wrappers, the consumption of water in glass bottles, stocking up at fountains or authorized distributors, conscious and sustainable spending, attention to the origin of food, and to avoid waste of food and energy resources.
An initiative carried out in Patti Marina (Messina), is the care of a Laudato Sì Garden by children, with the support of animators and parents, and the commitment of the members of the Club to plant together a tree or even sow a seed in one’s garden or in places where they work (schools, oratories, meeting centers, communities …) to respond concretely to the cry of the earth and praise the Lord by sowing new life.
On the occasion of International Earth Day, on 22 April 2021, EtnaMain promoted a competition aimed at children and young people of Primary and Secondary Schools on the theme “Sow I love life”, to stimulate them to become custodians of biodiversity through the creation of a design or an artifact that recalls a sowing theme, metaphor for the rebirth of the planet. The winners will receive trees to be planted in their gardens, in spaces of their schools or in their cities.
To celebrate Earth Day together, the EtnaMain Circle also proposed “a virtual embrace for Mother Earth”, by praying the Our Father at 12 noon on April 22, in the various locations where the members of the Club are present, so that the Lord may “Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards Your infinite light.” (LS n 246)
What moves the members of the Club to promote various initiatives, in addition to love and respect for Mother Earth, is the solicitude to respond to one of the questions posed by Pope Francis in the Encyclical Laudato Sì: “What kind of world do we want leave to those who will come after us, to the children who are growing up? I renew my urgent appeal to respond to the ecological crisis; the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor can no longer wait. Let us take care of creation, a gift from our good God the Creator.”
The Laudato Sì Circles, promoted by the World Catholic Climate Movement, are small groups of people who meet regularly to study the Encyclical Laudato Sì in-depth and to take care of the common home, based on three pillars: Prayer with and for creation; Reflection on how to implement and disseminate integral ecological conversion practices; Group action for the adoption of conscious and sustainable lifestyles, with the realization of community events and the implementation of mobilization initiatives in defense of the common home.
