World Day of Prayer for Creation
September 1 begins the Season of Creation
From September 1 to October 4, Christians around the world mark the Season of Creation, a relatively recent development in the liturgical calendar.
The practice began in 1989 when Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed September 1 a day of prayer for the environment. In 2000, a Lutheran congregation in Australia developed a four-week celebration of creation — and the idea spread throughout that nation and beyond. Eventually, the Vatican picked up the practice and the World Council of Churches promoted the new liturgical season.
During these weeks, Christians are urged to recognize the theological centrality of God the Creator, Creation itself, the human vocation of caring for Creation, and doing justice on behalf of the Earth and all of her inhabitants.
All creation is a temple, says St. Gregory the Great.
Every tree, stone, lizard, rabbit, meteor, comet, and star to us is holy.
—Ernesto Cardenal
For all of its struggles internally, especially in the West, Christianity remains the world’s largest religion — and it is incumbent upon people of faith to work for the Earth’s healing and renewal in this time of crisis. Christians bear the burden of being part of the problem as many Christian traditions have badly muddled their theologies of creation and promoted practices that colonized and destroyed the very world we were instructed to “till and keep.”
The Season of Creation is marked by repentance for that past, a call to deepen theological reflection and spiritual awareness of Creation, and engaging justice on behalf of nature and our neighbors. Attending to Creation in liturgy, prayer, scripture, and spirituality may be one of the most significant theological shifts in contemporary Christianity, and is certainly one of the most needed.
The World Day of Prayer for Creation is not a kind of off-handed “thoughts and prayers” dismissal. It is an invitation to experience faith differently, to center Creation and the Creator, and to learn the Bible and theology anew. This day invites us to metanoia — a profound change of heart and life, a genuine conversion toward a Creation-based vision of God, nature, and neighbor.
And, as I hope Cottage readers know, this invitation is not exclusive to Christians. The Cottage is, as always, open. Everyone is welcome to this month of creation reflection — whatever your faith, practice, or tradition. Please contribute insights from your sacred texts, offer prayers from your tradition, and share generously as we join this journey together.
We all need a new heart when it comes to the repair of this hurting, wounded world. And we need each other now — as urgently as the planet needs us.
For the next month, we will continue to explore the Season of Creation here at The Cottage — especially in Sunday Musings.
We’ve changed the planet, changed it in large and fundamental ways.
Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding,
and burning in ways that no human has ever seen.
— Bill McKibben
PRAYERS
Living God, you call us to be good stewards of this earthly home, strengthen us to care for your creation; forgive us when, through our greed and indifference we abuse its beauty and damage its potential. Empower us, through your Spirit to so nurture and love the world, that all creation sings to your glory.
— The Church of England
Create in us a new heart and a new vision, O God,
that the gifts of your Spirit may work
in us and renew the face of the earth.
May we be one with you
so that our work is yours
and your work is ours.
Lead us to transform our lives
to reflect your glory in Creation.
— From “Prayers of Intercession for Creation Time 2012,” prepared by Sister Catherine Brennan SSL and Sister Ann Concannon
All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace, that we may live
as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor,
help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,
so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives,
that we may protect the world and not prey on it,
that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts
of those who look only for gain
at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,
to be filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle
for justice, love and peace.
— Pope Francis
Loving God, even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she places her young near Your altar. You are attentive to all you have made.
God, who listens to every living thing,
Help us listen as you do.
Loving God, help us provide refuge to every animal and plant with whom we live. Help us be attentive to all you have made.
God, in whom all creation subsists,
Help us listen as you do.
Loving God, when Jesus cried out and gave up his Spirit, the earth shook and the rocks split. You are known by the whole of creation that listens to you.
God, to whom all creation responds,
Help us respond to you.
Loving God, help us hear and know you just as the earth and rocks do. Help us to learn from the way in which we see creation recognize your glorious beauty.
God, to whom all creation responds,
Help us respond to you.
Loving God, you are present in your creation and seek to heal her wounds. You can be found walking in the garden. Open our eyes to see you, the gardener.
God, who is present with your creation,
Help us be present too.
Loving God, we often abandon your creation and cause its wounds. Help us to follow in your footsteps and learn to walk in the garden like you.
God, who is present with your creation,
Help us be present too.
Loving God, who hears every voice, knows each cry of injustice, and is attentive to the suffering of the earth: teach us to listen. Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may listen to the world you have created and not close ourselves off from it. Reveal to us the ways in which we have failed to hear your voice in how we treat the earth.
God, who listens to every living thing,
Help us listen as you do. Amen.
— Intercessory Prayers for Creation, from Season of Creation: A Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes
We humans are bound to God and to one another in a cosmic covenant that also includes all the other living creatures on the face of the earth:
‘I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground.’
We humans are not saved from the world but with the world; and that means, with the animals. Moreover, this cosmic covenant is not something that we humans have devised, but it has its source in the divine realm. It is conferred upon us as a gift by God.
— Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
Contemplate the wonders of creation, the Divine dimension of their being, not as a dim configuration that is presented to you from a distance, but as the reality in which you live.
—Abraham Isaac Kook
After reading your post and feeling a bit hopeless at what can be done, I realized unnecessary lights were on, and considered that just walking @ and turning them off was a small offering, doable in the moment, multiplied by a deeper awareness: I can combine those 2 errands later, thus making only one trip. I can also convert personal energy towards higher purpose—giving a supportive instead of judging glance towards the Mom struggling w/a child’s public temper tantrum, choosing my media content carefully, staying the extra few seconds in a grace-filled meditation.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed at what I can’t do, just making one small effort leads me in a different direction “...filled with awe and contemplation,
to recognize that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.”
Amen
Thank you, Diana!
Before your post, I wasn’t aware of this liturgical season. Now that I am, I’ll change the sequence of my poem sharing on my M.A. Hastings Poetry Substack to focus on creation, starting the first week in September. In the meantime, this is what your post inspired me to write this morning:
Inside Out Prayer
Nothing ever grew from the
outside in
The sperm needs an egg-womb
for life to begin
The seed unseen in sod’s tomb, resurrects beans and blooms once again
Joy is birthed in silence’s mine
amidst its darkness, the heart’s voice finds
Wisdom is given through the incarnation of nature’s mystery
Breeze whispered through
trees of Old Forests
Cake layered beneath is
our Mother Earth’s history.
©️M.A. Hastings
August 31, 2023