The Season of Creation – September 2020

The Season of Creation has a special significance for the Catholic Church, particularly since Pope Francis established 1 September as an annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. 

The Season of Creation or Creation Time, is marked throughout the Christian world from 1 September to 4 October (Feast of St. Francis of Assisi) and celebrates the joy of creation as well as encouraging awareness-raising initiatives to protect the natural environment.

The following resources are offered for use in dioceses, parishes and in the home, during the Season of Creation 2020. Please note that the resources will be updated regularly so do please check back in with this page from time to time. 

Pope Francis quotes on Caring for Our Common Home 

“We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family.”

“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.”
 
“Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years.”
 
“We are not God. The Earth was here before us and was given to us.”
 
“The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology … is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit.”
 
“Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.”

Resources for the Season of Creation 2020 from the Laudato Si’ Working Group

  1. Sunday Liturgy Notes for the Season of Creation 2020 – click to download Sunday Liturgy Notes for Season of Creation 2020
  2. A Week-Day Prayer Service for the Season of Creation 2020: Cultivating Hope – click here to download A Week Day Prayer Service for the Season of Creation 2020
  3. Practical Actions for Parishioners – click to download Practical Actions for Parishoners 2020
  4. Leaflet for the Season of Creation 2020 – click to download pdf versions for web Cultivating Hope 2020 Web Version or for print print Cultivating Hope Leaflet 2020 Print version

These liturgical resources have been prepared by the Laudato Si’ Working Group of the Bishops’ Council for Catechetics.

Resources from the Vatican 

Click here for news on the Season of Creation and the fifth anniversary of Laudato Si’ from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development. 

Creation Time Podcasts [coming soon] 

A series of  special podcasts will be made available for Creation Time 2020 on:

  • the theology of care for our common home
  • the science bit of climate change
  • what parishes can do now to care for our common home

Creation Time Thought for the Day visuals 

There are a selection of images available for use in parishes and dioceses for the Season of Creation. These can be downloaded for sharing on websites and social media. More visuals will be added over the course of the next few weeks so do check the album for the most recent visuals. 

Click here for the images. 

Recommended reading for the Season of Creation 2020

Prayers and Reflections for Creation Time

Audio: Click here to listen to ‘A Prayer for Our Earth’ from Laudato Si’.

A prayer for our earth from Laudato Si’ 
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.
Amen.

Common Prayer for the Fifth Anniversary of Laudato Si’ 

A Christian prayer in union with creation
Father, we praise you with all your creatures.
They came forth from your all-powerful hand; they are yours, filled with your presence and your tender love.
Praise be to you!
Son of God, Jesus,
through you all things were made.

You were formed in the womb of Mary our Mother, you became part of this earth, and you gazed upon this world with human eyes.
Today you are alive in every creature
in your risen glory.
Praise be to you!

Holy Spirit, by your light
You guide this world towards the Father’s love and accompany creation as it groans in travail.
You also dwell in our hearts
and you inspire us to do what is good.
Praise be to you!

Triune Lord, wondrous community of infinite love, teach us to contemplate you in the beauty of the universe, for all things speak of you.
Awaken our praise and thankfulness
for every being that you have made.
Give us the grace to feel profoundly joined to everything that is.

God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight.
Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live.
The poor and the earth are crying out.

O Lord, seize us with your power and light, help us to protect all life, to prepare for a better future, for the coming of your Kingdom of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!
Amen.

Meadow Meaning – A Reflection by Brother Richard Hendrick OFM Cap 

Shhhhh…
Look…
Listen…
Even
the blades of grass
Even
the flowers
you dare to call
weeds
Even
the light fast lives
of tiny buzzing
beings
hear the call of Divine
love
and give them
selves totally to
grow towards the
light.
And what of
you?

Forest Faith – a reflection by Brother Richard Hendrick Ofm Cap 

When the edges of my mind fray,
and the golden sacred thread
seems pulled, gathered, caught
upon the briar of my broken being,
and my hearthome holds too much
behind its ancient doors
so there is no breathing space at all,
I take myself to the woods.
For there I become not young,
but small again and feel the rising
ocean tides of sap lull me at last
into the deep greening rest of soul
only the old tall ones know
the sky touchers, earth drinkers
we call in our dull infant speech, simply Trees.
So I place my foot upon the winding path
and dew the way with tears and sometimes even blood,
until their windleaf song sounds soul deep, and slows and halts me long enough
to feel their verdant canopy of calm,
and I greet them then,
as the keepers of the way they are;
the blessed Beech and noble Holly,
the Oak and Ash and Thorn,
grey brown brothers and sisters
of the branching dance of being.
Their familiar oldness a reminder
of my passing place
in all this; they leaflean down
to teach me once again the way of prayer
as being and being as prayer,
allowing the holy breath to play along my spine as within their trunked tallness
while standing through the shifting seasons
they grow slowly, imperceptibly, always,
until flower and fruiting follow in their turn,
then the seeming fall, asleep asunder for awhile,
as my life now flutters, cast upon the winds
lost in wildness, a wintered leaf, dry and brittle,
but here in their stately shadows
daring to read the scripture of their state,
and hear their prophecy proclaimed in stillness; that old roots dig deep and deeper still, that branches bend so not to break and that there is a joy in storms when yielded to.
So for a while I breathe the sylvan air
and greet the great and green,
these guardians of natural grace,
and then when I have walked long enough to become reminded, rewilded and rehomed in heart, I bow in thanks
and leave the woods to plant their sainted seeds throughout my world and life;
to feel a forest grow within
and make the faith feathered one
a home.

ENDS 

These resources have been prepared by the Catholic Communications Office, the Bishops’ Council for Justice and Peace, the Laudato Si’ Working Group, Trócaire, and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. We are also grateful to Brother Richard Hendrick OFm Cap for his beautiful reflections on the natural world.