Guide to Organizing a Birthday Party for Laudato Si

“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience”

(Laudato Si’, 217). Many people have not yet experienced an ecological conversion.

Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change and ecology, celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025. A birthday party for the encyclical is a creative, joyful way to bring its life-giving message to people who haven’t yet heard it.

Help new people hear the message of integral ecology by organizing a birthday party for Laudato Si’ with a parish outside your own, a local Catholic school, or another group. Aim to invite 10 new people to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’.

Find a time and place

Work with the leaders of the partnering parishes or schools to find a time and place that’s convenient for everyone.

Invite people

An invitation to which you can add your time and location is here. This editable invitation uses Canva, a free design application. You can download your design to share it by text message or email or print it.

If you’d like an easier option, please feel free to download a Word document here.

Online invitation platforms are also a good option to create an invitation that can be shared by email or text message.

Suggested party agenda

• Ask party guests to bring their favorite foods to be shared, or serve birthday foods like cake and ice cream. Be sure to use reusable dishware.
• Have different people in the group read their favorite parts of Laudato Si’ aloud and share why these sections are meaningful to them.
• Consider a creative activity.
  • Paint or draw pictures that celebrate creation and hang them in the building at the end of the party.
  • Take a walk in creation, and at the end of the walk share insights about what each person heard from the Creator.
  • Have each person bring old clothes from home. Cut and glue pieces from each one on a piece of posterboard or a piece of wood to create a shared mural of a tree, the Earth, or the parish church or school. Hang the mural in the building.
  • If possible, use chalk to draw a shared picture of a tree, flowers, or other pieces of creation on an outside wall. Have each person sign his or her name to the drawing. Take a photo and share it via social media or a newsletter.
• Take turns reading lines from a shared prayer. You can either print a prayer card before the party or share a link for everyone to read on their phones.
  • Click here for a prayer card for one of the prayers that closes Laudato Si’, A Prayer for our Earth.
  • Click here for a prayer card for St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, which celebrates its 800th anniversary in 2025.
• Close the party by singing a song from your local tradition that celebrates the Creator and creation.