Season of Creation 2022

The Season of Creation runs from the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation – September 1 – to the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi – October 4. It is a time set aside each year to focus on God’s gift of creation and our responsibility to care for it, our common home.

The theme for the Season of Creation in 2022 is Listen to the Voice of Creation.

There are many resources available to support you in your efforts to celebrate the Season of Creation. A key resource is the Season of Creation web site. Here you will find:
⦁ A celebration guide which provides a prayer service template from which you can choose material to use in your context
⦁ Social media and newsletter graphics and wording
⦁ A message from Pope Francis and more.
The site also has a wealth of other resources which you may find useful for preparing a special Mass, a prayer service or other activities during the Season.

A Catholic Season of Creation

The Columbans in Australia have compiled resources to help you to incorporate Season of Creation themes into each Sunday Mass during the Season. You can access their resources and find out more here.

Pope Francis’ Message for the World Day of Prayer
for Care of Creation 2022 One way you can help your community engage in the Pope’s message is to share a quote on each of the five Sundays during the Season of Creation. Here are five examples you can use:

Sunday 4 September
The sweet song of creation invites us to practise an “ecological spirituality” (Laudato Si’, 216), attentive to God’s presence in the natural world. It is a summons to base our spirituality on the “loving awareness that we are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion” (ibid., 220).
Sunday 11 September
For the followers of Christ in particular, this luminous experience reinforces our awareness that “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (Jn 1:3). In this Season of Creation, we pray once more in the great cathedral of creation, and revel in the “grandiose cosmic choir” made up of countless creatures, all singing the praises of God. Let us join Saint Francis of Assisi in singing: “Praise be to you, my Lord, for all your creatures” (cf. Canticle of Brother Sun). Let us join the psalmist in singing, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” (Ps 150:6).
Sunday 18 September
Tragically, that sweet song {of creation} is accompanied by a cry of anguish. Or even better: a chorus of cries of anguish. In the first place, it is our sister, mother earth, who cries out. Prey to our consumerist excesses, she weeps and implores us to put an end to our abuses and to her destruction. Then too, there are all those different creatures who cry out. At the mercy of a “tyrannical anthropocentrism” (Laudato Si’, 68), completely at odds with Christ’s centrality in the work of creation, countless species are dying out and their hymns of praise silenced.
Sunday 25 September
…There are also the poorest among us who are crying out. Exposed to the climate crisis, the poor feel even more gravely the impact of the drought, flooding, hurricanes and heat waves that are becoming ever more intense and frequent. Likewise, our brothers and sisters of the native peoples are crying out. As a result of predatory economic interests, their ancestral lands are being invaded and devastated on all sides, “provoking a cry that rises up to heaven” (Querida Amazonia, 9).

Sunday 2 October

…Finally, there is the plea of our children. Feeling menaced by shortsighted and selfish actions, today’s young people are crying out, anxiously asking us adults to do everything possible to prevent, or at least limit, the collapse of our planet’s ecosystems.

Intercessory Prayers

Here are a selection of prayers of intercession from which you may choose a prayer to include in the Intercessory Prayers of each Sunday in the Season of Creation or which you may use at a special Mass or prayer service for the Season of Creation:

For all that You have created, that we may always be aware that we are not disconnected from other creatures, but joined in a splendid universal communion. Lord, hear us.
For Your wondrous gift of creation, that we may join St. Francis of Assisi and all of creation in ceaselessly praising You, our creator. Lord, hear us.
For our sister, mother earth, who cries out because of the impact of our consumerist excesses, that we may put an end to our abuses and take action to end her destruction. Lord, hear us.
For the countless animal and plant species that are dying out and whose praise of You is being silenced, that urgent and effective action is taken to ensure their survival. Lord, hear us.
For our poorest sisters and brothers who feel much more acutely the impact of extreme weather events associated with climate change. That world leaders will hear their cry for dignity and justice and take timely action. Lord, hear us.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples whose traditional lands and places of cultural significance are being devastated by economic interests. That their cries for justice are heeded and result in appropriate action by Government and business leaders. Lord, hear us.
For world leaders who will gather for the COP 27 on climate and the COP 15 on biodiversity later this year. That they will remain resolute in their commitment to do what is needed to prevent the devastating impacts of climate change and halt the alarming loss of biological diversity. Lord, hear us.
For the children of the world who are worried about the impact on the earth of short-sighted and selfish actions. That all adults will share in the responsibility to offer them a future without immense ecosystem collapse. Lord, hear us.

Other Resources

You may wish to use some of the resources below as part of your Season of Creation Masses, services and events or to share them in your newsletters over the Season of Creation.