SIMPLE AND PRECIOUS

... Water ... is a very simple and precious element, yet access to it is, sadly, for many people difficult if not impossible. Nonetheless, "access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and ... is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world owes a great social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity" (Laudato Si', 30).

"SISTER WATER"

... I feel the need to give thanks to God for "Sister Water", simple and useful for life like nothing else on our planet. Precisely for this reason, care for water sources and water basins is an urgent imperative... We urgently need shared projects and concrete gestures that recognize that every privatization of the natural good of water , at the expense of the human right to have access to this good, is unacceptable.

PURIFICATION AND LIFE

For us Christians, water represents an essential element of purification and of life.

FOLLOWING JESUS

Jesus ... promised a water capable of quenching human thirst for ever. He prophesied, "If any one thirst, let him come to Me and drink (Jn 7:37). To drink from Jesus means to encounter Him personally as the Lord, drawing from His words the meaning of life. May the words He spoke from the cross "I thirst" (Jn 19:28) echo constantly in our hearts.

JESUS THIRSTS

The Lord continues to ask that His thirst be quenched; He thirsts for love. He asks us to give Him to drink in all those who thirst in our own day... To give to drink in the global village, does not only entail personal gestures of charity, but also concrete choices and a constant commitment to ensure to all the primary good of water.

LITTERED SEAS

We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic... Our active commitment is needed to confront this emergency. We need to pray as if everything depended on God's providence, and work as if everything depended on us.

PRAYERFUL HOPE

It is my prayerful hope that Christian communities may contribute more and more concretely helping everyone to enjoy this indispensable resource, in respectful care for the gifts received from the Creator, and in particular rivers, seas and oceans.

(Source: Message for World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 9/1/2018)