This prayer is a contemporary reimagining of the Romero Prayer, originally written by the late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw and often misattributed to Saint Óscar Romero. It was composed with those who care for our common home and all who labor quietly for ecological renewal.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view of creation.

The healing of our common home is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our sight.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a small part of the great renewal that is God’s work in the world.

Nothing we do is complete—and that is another way of saying that the wholeness of creation always lies beyond us.

No campaign restores every forest.
No prayer cools every warming sea.
No act of solidarity mends every wound of the poor or the planet.
No gathering, however global, fulfills the dream of communion.

This is what we are about.

We plant trees whose shade we will never sit beneath.
We tend the soil that others will harvest.
We clean the waters, trusting they will flow clear again.

We join the slow work of resurrection—
the quiet mending of all that has been broken.

We cannot do everything, and there is peace in knowing that.
It frees us to do something, and to do it with love and perseverance.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning—
a step along the way—
a chance for the Spirit to breathe through our small acts
and make them more than we could imagine.

We are sowers, not saviors;
caretakers, not creators;
pilgrims on this beautiful, wounded earth—
walking together toward restoration,
trusting that God makes all things new.