This global celebration began September 1st and will end October 4th, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians. This year the ecumenically promoted biblical text for the season is Isaiah 32:14-18.
The prophet Isaiah pictures a desolate earth without peace: due to the lack of justice and the broken relationship between God and humankind. That prophetic description of devastated cities and wastelands eloquently stresses the fact that human destructive behaviors have a negative impact on the earth. Predicated on this vision, this year’s ecumenical hope is that the whole earth will find peace when justice is restored.
The Season of Creation is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and the whole creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers in the ecumenical family around the earth in prayer and action for our common home.
Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed September 1 as a day of prayer for creation for the Orthodox in 1989. In fact, the Orthodox church year starts on that day with a commemoration of how God created the world. The World Council of Churches was instrumental in making this day an entire season, extending the celebration from September 1st until October 4th.
Following the leadership of Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I and the WCC, Christians worldwide have embraced the season as part of their annual calendar. Pope Francis warmly welcomed the season, officially adopting it in 2015. In recent years, statements from church leaders around the world have also encouraged the faithful everywhere to take time to find ways to care for creation during this month-long celebration.
Find ways to initiate or to join Season of Creation celebrations in your own setting. Sing about the glories of God’s good earth as your worship. Plant a tree during the week. Picket at your local bank whenever it’s open, demanding that that institution divest from its investments in poisonous fossil fuels.**
*This report was constructed from several ecumenical releases.
**For background reading, see my thin volumes EcoActivist Testament: Explorations of Faith and Nature for Fellow Travelers (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2022) and The Earth and the Fullness Thereof: A Down Home Reader in Ecological Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024).
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