The ecumenical Season of Creation extends from September 1st, the World Day of Prayer for All Creation, through October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. This year’s theme is Peace with Creation, and takes as its symbol the Garden of Peace. Many ecumenical resources for renewing our relationship with Creation are available at https://seasonofcreation.org. For this season and beyond,Catholic Climate Covenant has shared Spreading Seeds of Peace and Hope for Creation, a lovely collaborative compilation of eco-spirituality resources (art, poems, prayers, reflections and meditations) to aid our path to eco-conversion. I am humbled they included “Prayer for our Harmony with Mary, Mother of All Creation” a fruit of my 30-day retreat.
We are grateful to be nurturing such peaceful places for encounters in MEEC’s native plant restoration work. This year’s commemoration marks special milestones as the 10th Anniversary of both the Day of Prayer for Creation and Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si, on the Care of Our Common Home. It is also the 800th Anniversary of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures , a prayer of gratitude for creation including “Brother Sun,” “Sister Moon and Stars,” “Brother Wind” and “Sister Water,” all of whom give glory to God, their creator. I’ve just returned from a walk with a MEEC partner, where we admired the solar array and its developing prairie capturing the rays of Brother Sun; marveled at the thriving tall pollinator-abundant wild flowers in the labyrinth and tended smaller nursery seedlings needing a bit more Sister Water in this hotter-than-average September drought.
Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for September is for our relationship with all of creation. He said, “Let us pray that, inspired by St. Francis, we might experience our interdependence with all creatures who are loved by God and worthy of love and respect.” I encourage you to read Pope Leo’s message for the World Day of Care for Creation, Seeds of Hope and Peace, as it resonates with our work in spreading the MEEC community. I am grateful we can restore gardens of peace here at Mount St. John and for all of you who faithfully share in creating spaces for encounter with nature in your own native plant gardens. May Pope Leo’s words inspire our continued hope-filled actions so needed in our world today: “By working with love and perseverance, we can sow many seeds of justice and thus contribute to the growth of peace and the renewal of hope. It may well take years for this plant to bear its first fruits, years that, for their part, involve an entire ecosystem made up of continuity, fidelity, cooperation and love,”
I’m grateful you’re faithfully on the long journey, and hope you’ll join in the several upcoming events where we’ll celebrate and encounter creation’s beauty, learn together and become empowered pilgrims of hope for Creation to take action to alleviate environmental injustice. We are each an important part of the ecological and spiritual transformation the world so needs.