The Season of Creation is the annual Christian celebration to pray and respond together to the cry of Creation: the ecumenical family around the world unites to listen and care for our common home. The “Celebration” begins September 1, the Feast of Creation, and ends October 4, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations.
We invite you to join us during this Season of Creation, To Hope and Act with Creation. Season of Creation
As we continue recognizing the Season of Creation, we are invited to consider the theme ‘To Hope and Act with Creation’, with deeply contemplative seriousness. It calls us, the family of Creation, to recognize how interconnected all Creation is. Amid the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, many are beginning to despair and suffer from ecoanxiety. As people of faith, we are inspired by our faith in the hope of resurrection. This is not a hope without action but one embodied in concrete actions of prayer and preaching, service and solidarity.
Columban Fr. Vincent Busch, serving in the Philippines for about 50 years, created the Mandala featured in the photo. He also wrote a poem, trying to capture in a small way, the overwhelming greatness of God and the Universe. (adapted, with permission, from Education for Justice)
The new story of Creation, the Universe Story — so famously made known by Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim and their countless colleagues, students, and friends — makes very clear that at almost all times and seasons, in practically every day and every prayer, Our God is too small. In reality, the larger context of every moment of our lives is an expanding Universe of unimaginable size, power, and beauty.
In reality, the larger context of every moment of our lives is the Mystery we call God, the Creator, Who birthed this Universe in a great fiery flaring forth and Who has cherished and shaped it through billions of years, up to this very evolutionary moment, this very evolutionary place. Awareness of this Context of our lives demands that we pause in the deep quiet of awe. It is important that this is the sense of Creator God to Whom we turn, Who opens our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and to Whom we respond in awe, worship, and action during this Season of Creation.
Columban Fr. Vincent Busch, serving in the Philippines for about 50 years among the Subanens people, created the following Mandala and poem, trying to capture in a small way, in accessible images, symbols, and words from the new Universe Story, the overwhelming greatness of God and the Universe. We are grateful to Fr. Busch for permission to build upon his creative work.
May they be a blessing upon our efforts to respond to the great Mystery we call God, Who cherishes us and the Universe of which we are a small part, and, in words attributed to the Creator Spirit by Fr. Busch, welcomes us “…to the celebration of Creation’s transformation from my fire that grew to be a wondrous blue-green symphony.”
