Reflection
From September 1 to October 4, Christians around the world celebrate the Season of Creation. During this time we live out our faith in our responsibility to care for creation. The theme for this year is Peace with Creation. We are invited to share prayer and action for climate justice and the restoration of humanity’s relationship with God, one another, and the Earth. Human beings are part of a complex, delicate and interdependent web of life created and sustained by God. All other beings also have the right to live and prosper within the community of life. Prayer and action for climate justice and ecological restoration are the focus of this special time.
Prayer for the Season of Creation
Creator of all, we praise you for the gift of life and for the faith that unites us in care for our common home. We confess how estranged we have become— from one another, from your Creation, and from our truest selves. We acknowledge that our greed and destructive impulses have fractured our relationships with you, with others, and with the Earth. Fertile fields have become barren, forests lie desolate, oceans and rivers are polluted. Thriving communities have become places of suffering, and the earth cries out. Beloved Christ, who spoke “Shalom” to frightened hearts, stir us to compassionate action. Inspire us to work for the end of conflict, and for the full restoration of broken relationships— with you, with the ecumenical community, with the human family,
Action
Read Laudate Si if you haven’t done so.
Reflect on our mistreatment of creation, repent of the decisions we’ve made, and commit to new practices and habits.
Learn more about the wildlife and ecology of your community.
Talk about the web of life, and convey the truth that we can protect both people and our planet.
Give voice to the voiceless by advocating for nature in your home communities and beyond.
The Season of Creation also supports the call for major debt relief for the poorest countries, recognizing that they are disproportionately impacted by climate change.
Suggested Reading
Because of us thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.
Pope Francis
At the heart of every being lies creation’s dream of a principle that will one day give organic form to its fragmented treasures. God is unity.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The fundamental relation between humanity and nature is one of caring for creation.
Renewing the Earth, U.S. Catholic Bishops
For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.
Desmond Tutu
While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.
Maya Angelou
Every thread of creation is held in position by still other strands of things living.
Don McLean
There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
John Calvin
I look out of this window and I think this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is one small corner of it. The trees and birds and everything else and I’m part of it. I didn’t ask to be put here, I’ve been lucky in finding myself here.
Morris West
Safeguarding our common home is not only essential to protecting endangered species and preserving old-growth forests, it is also paramount to ending poverty, fighting injustice, and protecting the long-term survival of humankind and of our faith.
Catherine Cortez-Masto
We believe that all is one and that our call is to an active inclusive love that seeks this union with God and the sacred community of life that includes all of creation – air, soil, water, plants, and animals. We see ourselves in union with this community that we hold as the neighbor through whom God continues to be revealed.
Land Ethic Statement, Sisters of St. Joseph