In 2019 the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada officially added the Season of Creation (September 1st to October 4th) to the cycle of the liturgical year – the Church’s calendar. 

With the environmental crisis, or better yet, the environmental crises that we are living through, I believe we need this season more than ever. We need it because part of a faithful Christian response to the things that matter in the world is our worship and prayer (along with conversation, reflection and action). 

You will notice that the Season of Creation will be a focus over the coming month, in our liturgy and in some of our programming. I hope this will help us all to enter this time and personally engage in whatever way each of us is able. 

Please join with me in marking the beginning of this season with a prayer from the “Season of Creation Steering Committee,” an international and ecumenical group. Let us pray…

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.