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Season of Creation 2025

September 1-October 4, 2025

Introduction

Our celebration this year is guided by two poets: the English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins (+1889) and Denise Levertov (+1997), both converts to Catholicism. Further information on the former can be found at hopkinspoetry.com and the latter may be found at https://www.ncronline.org/culture/long-swim-denise-levertovs-conversion. Each day is introduced by verses from odes to creation in the Hebrew poetry of the Bible as found in the New Grail translation of the Psalms. An image from nature, a musical selection, a brief meditation from Pope Leo XIV or Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and a concluding collect are also included for each day.

September 1

Ps 104:1-2. 1 Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, how great you are, clothed in majesty and honor, 2 wrapped in light as with a robe! You stretch out the heavens like a tent.

God's Grandeur (Hopkins)

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining ftorn shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Bearing the Light (Levertov)

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appearrs, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds — the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.

Meditation

The theme of this World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, previously chosen by Pope Francis, is “Seeds of Peace and Hope”. It is also the tenth anniversary of the establishment of this Day of Prayer, which coincided with the publication of the encyclical Laudato si'.

In proclaiming the Kingdom of God, Jesus often used the image of the seed. As the time of his Passion drew near, he applied that image to himself, comparing himself to the grain of wheat that must die in order to bear fruit (cf. Jn 12:24). Seeds are buried in the earth, and there, to our wonder, life springs up, even in the most unexpected places, pointing to the promise of new beginnings. We can think, for example, of flowers springing up on our roadsides from seeds that landed up there almost by chance. As those flowers grow, they brighten the gray tarmac and even manage to break through its hard surface. (Pope Leo XIV; Message for the 10th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation 2025; June 30, 2025)

Musical Selection (Doxecology)

Heaven’s voice brings the dawn,
out of chaos is born
new creation
exploding with wonder;
planets spin into space,
earth and sky find their place,
all of nature
awakes to its maker.

You say everything you’ve made is good:
the sun, the moon,
the stars that shine above.
You say everything you’ve made is good:
the land, the seas
and all that lives and breathes.

We sing praise to the maker,
to our King, our creator:
praise to Almighty God.
All creation together
singing one hallelujah:
praise to Almighty God.

We are formed from the dust,
with your image in us,
given life by the breath
you are breathing;
called to work and to care,
called to nurture and share;
called to serve you
and walk where you’re leading.

Season of Creation 2025 Prayer

Creator of all,

we praise you for the gift of life

and for the faith that unites us in care for our common home.

We confess how estranged we have become—

from one another, from your Creation, and from our truest selves.

We acknowledge that our greed and destructive impulses

have fractured our relationships with you, with others, and with the Earth.

Fertile fields have become barren,

forests lie desolate,

oceans and rivers are polluted.

Thriving communities have become places of suffering,

and the earth cries out.

Beloved Christ,

who spoke “Shalom” to frightened hearts,

stir us to compassionate action.

Inspire us to work for the end of conflict,

and for the full restoration of broken relationships—

with you, with the ecumenical community,

with the human family,

and with all Creation.

Prince of Peace,

through your wounds, teach us to stand in solidarity

with the woundedness of others,

of creation, and of the world.

Through your resurrection,

make us people of hope—

with a vision of swords turned into ploughshares

and tears transformed into joy.

May we come together as one family,

to labor for your peace—

a shalom where all your people

may dwell in safety,

and rest in quiet places.

Amen.

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