# It's an inside job: Walking in praise with Pope Francis
*2015-10-07*

> On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Bill Young reflects on Day 12 of a series on care for our common home, focusing on the necessity of internal change to achieve outward ecological transformation.

## The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

Good morning. This is Bill Young, and welcome to the Prayer N Lunch podcast. Today is Wednesday, October 7th, the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. While we hope to pray the Rosary later today, we begin by continuing our series, "Walking in Praise with Pope Francis," focusing on care for our common home.

## The Necessity of Internal Change

Today is Day 12, and our topic is "It's an inside job." The core idea is that to make outward changes in the world, we must first look inward. We must come to the realization that we are responsible for working toward change.

## Recognizing Our Interconnectedness

Pope Francis suggests that we must accept that we are intimately connected with all life on our planet; what hurts one wounds us all. There is a profound imbalance when some of us eat more in a single day than others do in an entire week, or when factories pollute streams and destroy drinkable water. By embracing our interconnectedness with birds, animals, and all our brothers and sisters as God's creation, an immense love for our shared planet should begin to grow within us.

## Pondering Our Impact

As we ponder this, we should ask ourselves: How do the choices I make in a day affect the lives of my sisters and brothers globally?

## A Prayer for Creation

God, Creator of all, help me to feel the sorrow of all nature as it is destroyed, and to view the loss of species as the loss of family.

*Outward ecological change begins with an internal realization of our intimate connection to all of God's creation.*