Tomorrow is a day of prayer for creation, a day marked first by the Orthodox Church in 1989 and now celebrated ecumenically. The Global Catholic Climate Change Movement’s site, SeasonofCreation.com, provides liturgical resources, prayers, petitions and more, and the Facebook page includes a signup for notifications and resources.
From the website:
And it has happened that in recent years many Christian churches have started celebrating the “Season of Creation” (also known as Creation Time) between that date and October 4, which is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (author of the Canticle of the Creatures in the 13th century) that some Western traditions observe.
It is meant to give flexibility to celebrate prayer services for creation in alternative dates throughout the month, while engaging in different actions to care for creation throughout the season.
From Catholic News Service:
The Washington-based Catholic Climate Covenant has developed its own program for the St. Francis feast day. The educational program is called “Dial Down the Heat: Cultivate the Common Good for our Common Home.” You can see a video about the program here.
Dan Misleh, Catholic Climate Covenant executive director, said it is designed to bring diverse people together to in a civil dialogue on climate change in a time of political polarization and to find common ground to protect Earth by thinking about ways to use less energy so “we put less CO2 into the atmosphere.”
“We need to be thinking about how do we create the space for people to have civil dialogue as opposed to people shouting at each other,” he told Catholic News Service.
In 2015, Pope Francis wrote a letter of support for the day. From his call to prayer (embedded below):
“The relationship between poverty and the fragility of the planet requires another way of managing the economy and measuring progress, conceiving a new way of living.”
More resources: