For the past five years, the Catholic Church has joined other Christian Churches in celebrating  September 1st as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, celebrated by the Orthodox Church since 1989. This ecumenical venture has now been expanded into a month-long period known as the ‘Season of Creation’.

According to the Holy Father, “The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation offers to individual believers and to the community a precious opportunity to renew our personal participation in our vocation as stewards of creation, raising to God our thanks for the marvelous works that He has entrusted to our care, invoking his help for the protection of creation and  His mercy for the sins committed against the world in which we live.”

As we pray in gratitude this season for God’s blessing upon all of creation and the work of our hands, let us not forget that we must each do the works of holiness in our lives.

We praise and bless you, O Lord,
At the beginning of the beginning, you breathed upon the waters of creation,
and filled the earth with life through your vibrant Spirit.
You spoke, and the earth burst forth in life, you saw that it was good.
You called forth creation and enlivened every creature on land and sea.
We praise you for your manifold gifts.
May our daily care for your creation show reverence for your name,
and reveal your saving power in every creature under heaven.
We make this prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen.