World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

1 September to 4 October is Time for Creation.

The beginning and the end date of Time for Creation are linked with the concern for creation in the Eastern and the Western traditions of Christianity, respectively.

September 1st was proclaimed as  a day of prayer for the environment by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989. The Orthodox church year starts that day with a commemoration of how God created the world. On 4 October, Roman Catholics and other churches from the Western traditions commemorate Francis of Assisi, known to many as the author of the Canticle of the Creatures.

The proposal to celebrate a Time for Creation during these five weeks was made by the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in 2007.The following year, the WCC Central Committee invited churches to observe Time for Creation through prayers and actions

Pope Francis has designated September 1st as the annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. He hopes this day will be a time for individuals and communities to “reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.”

To celebrate this auspicious new day in our calendar year, Catholic Earthcare Australia have partnered with the Franciscans (OFMs) to develop a beautiful downloadable prayer resource, featuring a prayer for creation from Laudato si’. We hope that you will find it a useful resource for World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

It is our profound conviction that the future of the human family depends also on how we safeguard – both prudently and compassionately, with justice and fairness – the gift of creation that our Creator has entrusted to us. Therefore, we acknowledge in repentance the wrongful mistreatment of our planet, which is tantamount to sin before the eyes of God. We reaffirm our responsibility and obligation to foster a sense of humility and moderation so that all may feel the need to respect creation and to safeguard it with care. Together, we pledge our commitment to raising awareness about the stewardship of creation; we appeal to all people of goodwill to consider ways of living less wastefully and more frugally, manifesting less greed and more generosity for the protection of God’s world and the benefit of His people.

In May 2014 Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, held private talks in Jerusalem and signed a Common Declaration in which they pledged to continue on the path towards unity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Their encounter marked the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and the Patriarch Athenagoras in 1964.

Prayers From The Pacific