Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I hesitated to write. Too often, the “Season of Creation” risks becoming a slogan—spoken with fervor for a time, then quietly forgotten. We call for care of creation while continuing to live in ways that harm it. I must confess I share in this contradiction, having benefited from consumerist habits and tolerated waste.
Yet the wounds of creation are undeniable. In our own houses, clinics, hospitals, and communities, the choices we make every day either heal or harm. Across our Province—the Philippines with reported corruption in flood-control projects that worsens disasters, Indonesia’s forests pressured by mining and palm oil, Australia’s drought and fire, Taiwan’s typhoons and rising seas—the poor suffer first and most. The earth cries out, and with it the sick and vulnerable entrusted to us.
We cannot speak of peace with creation while allowing waste, excusing wrongdoing, or ignoring our part. Care for our common home is not a season but a daily discipline. Let each community begin now; and when the Provincial and Delegation Councils meet on October 27–30, 2025, we will share the concrete steps already underway. Without this, our witness lacks credibility.
Isaiah tells us: “The effect of righteousness will be peace” (Is 32:17). True peace is born where justice is done—for the land, for the poor, and for generations yet to come.
With this in mind, may I invite us to an examen that becomes practice: choose a simpler way of living—in what we buy and how we travel. Aim for a gentler footprint in water and energy. Handle waste faithfully in our religious houses, hospitals, parishes, and clinics. Reject every shade of corruption and welcome transparency in projects that touch our apostolate and ministry. Provide steady seminary formation in ecological care and disaster readiness. Let budgets and plans favor sobriety and resilience. Let us shine in our identity as consecrated persons—living our evangelical counsels with joy and credibility, and offering a countercultural witness of simplicity, truth, and care for the least.
With St. Camillus, may we see Christ in the wounded earth as in the sick. With St. Francis, may we rediscover creation as sister and mother. Mary, Health of the Sick, sustain our resolve. And with Christ Himself, may we labor for a peace that endures.
Fraternally yours,
Fr. Evan Paul A. Villanueva, MI
Provincial Superior
Camillian Phillippine Province
