The period from 1st September until 4th October is celebrated by churches throughout the world as ‘Creation Time’. It’s a time “dedicated to prayer for the protection of Creation and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles that reverse our contribution to climate change”.
The beginning and end dates are significant:
- 1st September is the first day of the Eastern Orthodox liturgical year. In 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch suggested that it should be observed as a day of “protection of the natural environment”. 10 years later, the the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) expanded the idea to cover a longer period and they encouraged churches to adopt the period from 1st September until 4th October as a ‘Time for Creation’.
- 4th October is the feast day of St Francis, known for his love for animals and the environment.
The theme for this year is A home for all? Renewing the Oikos of God. Psalm 24:1 says: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. Sadly, however, we’re now facing a climate crisis – a crisis that’s putting all of creation at serious risk. This year’s focus on Oikos – the family, the family’s property and the house – looks to remind us of our interconnectedness. It’s a reminder that the Season of Creation should be a time for action as well as prayer.
Within the whole inhabited Earth (oikoumene), the Church (oikoumene) calls all households and societies (oikos) to turn our political, social and economic systems (oikonomia) towards just, sustainable economies of life, which respect the limits and life giving ecological boundaries (oikologia) of our common home.
https://seasonofcreation.org/about/
Season of Creation 2021 Prayer
Creator of All,
We are grateful that from your communion of love you created our planet to be a home
for all. By your Holy Wisdom you made the Earth to bring forth a diversity of living beings
that filled the soil, water and air. Each part of creation praises you in their being, and
cares for one another from our place in the web of life.
With the Psalmist, we sing your praise that in your house “even the sparrow finds a
home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.” We remember
that you call human beings to keep your garden in ways that honor the dignity of each
creature and conserve their place in the abundance of life on Earth.
But we know that our will to power pushes the planet beyond her limits. Our
consumption is out of harmony and rhythm with Earth’s capacity to heal herself.
Habitats are left barren or lost. Species are lost and systems fail. Where reefs and
burrows, mountaintops and ocean deeps once teemed with life and relationships, wet
and dry deserts lie empty, as if uncreated. Human families are displaced by insecurity
and conflict, migrating in search of peace. Animals flee fires, deforestation and famine,
wandering in search of a new place to find a home to lay their young and live.
In this Season of Creation, we pray that the breath of your creative Word would move
our hearts, as in the waters of our birth and baptism. Give us faith to follow Christ to our
just place in the beloved community. Enlighten us with the grace to respond to your
covenant and call to care for our common home. In our tilling and keeping, gladden our
hearts to know that we participate with your Holy Spirit to renew the face of your Earth,
and safeguard a home for all.
In the name of the One who came to proclaim good news to all creation, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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