In the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has invited Catholics to perform a new “work of mercy” towards Creation, first of all by repenting of the “harm we are doing to our common home”, and then, “after a serious examination of conscience”, by confessing “our sins against the Creator, against creation, and against our brothers and sisters”. This is the “gesture” asked for by Pope Francis in his Message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which the Catholic Church celebrates today, 1 September, in the Jubilee Year, in union with our Orthodox brothers and sisters and with the support of other Christian Churches and communities. The Pope cited the message of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and his predecessor Dimitrios who have “long spoken out against the sin of harming creation” and have “drawn attention – the Pope wrote – to the moral and spiritual crisis at the root of environmental problems”. “In the light of what is happening to our common home – Pope Francis continued -, may the present Jubilee of Mercy summon the Christian faithful to profound interior conversion”. The Pope then encouraged everyone to “implore God’s mercy for those sins against creation that we have not hitherto acknowledged and confessed. Let us likewise commit ourselves to taking concrete steps towards ecological conversion, which requires a clear recognition of our responsibility to ourselves, our neighbours, creation and the Creator”. The message ends with an appeal to Catholics to perform a new “work of mercy” towards creation: both “spiritual” – the Pope suggested – that may be performed through a “grateful contemplation of the world”, and “corporal” that may be performed through “simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness” in order to “build a better world”. “Let me propose a complement to the two traditional sets of seven – the Pope remarked -: may the works of mercy also include care for our common home”.