The 2024 Season of Creation School Competition was filled with incredible messages of “Hope and Action” from children across Victoria, New South Wales, and Fiji.
Images of lush green landscapes and deep blue oceans were contrasted against images of ecological deprivation and pollution, yet the children’s spirit strongly demonstrated their calls for action:
Raise up your hand to help!
Keep the trees standing! End deforestation!
Listen to your heart and your brain, then DO the right thing!
The sea creatures are happy when their home is not covered in pollution - pick up your rubbish!
Many children included their hopes for creation:
Preserve a clean earth for future generations to enjoy.
Take care of the earth and make it a safe place.
In the future, I hope for big, towering trees that give amazing air to breathe.
We need companies that will support the environment and our common home.
There were also children who echoed Catholic spirituality and inter-generational examples through their prophetic reflections:
Faith & hope is expressed through God’s creation.
Pope Francis inspires me to protect nature and be a good steward of planet Earth.
God created our common home, so we need to care for God’s creation.
My Nonno is a gardener and inspires me to take care of nature so I can live a healthier life.
Dad inspires me to care for our plants and trees - I want to follow in his footsteps.
The 2024 Season of Creation School Competition gives a timely reminder that through “the little ones” (Matt 18:6), the Holy Spirit is moving and calling for careful and wise stewardship of God’s creation. Winner of the High School Essay Competition, Miss Shantelle Augustine from St Teresa Catholic School (Ba, Fiji), directs this generation’s prophetic focus by reflecting:
“A healthy environment provides for the needs of all people, particularly the vulnerable and marginalised who suffer the most from environmental degradation. By protecting our wildlife, we act out of concern for the well-being of the environment surrounding us. Moreover, Christianity encourages a heartfelt gratitude towards creation (because) it is seen as God’s handicraft. Psalm 104 celebrates the beauty and complexity of creation, inspiring us to appreciate and safeguard it. This also brings honour to God.”
Congratulations to the prize winners of the 2024 Season of Creation Schools Competition! The Columban Mission Centre in Essendon would like to thank all the children for their creative artworks, words of wisdom, thoughtful reflections, and prayers. Deep appreciation goes to the teachers and school staff who supported each student to enter the competition.
This year’s Season of Creation has been enriched by the voices of children who, through their baptism and faith, have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to turn their art and their words into a “song of love for God, for humanity, with and for creation.” (Pope Francis, 1 September 2024)
Mariana Waqa is the Partnership Coordinator at the Columban Mission Centre in Essendon.
Listen to "Out of the mouths of children a call for hope and action "
Related links
