by Joseph Nangle, OFM
Pax Christi USA 2023 Teacher of Peace
This Sunday, the first of September, we celebrate the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. It also is the beginning of the Season of Creation 2024. Pope Francis has issued a message which calls to mind the deeply spiritual nature of this day and this season.
The theme which the Holy Father has selected for his reflections is worthy of consideration: Hope and act with creation. It places the human person squarely within God’s wonderful act of love in “all that is seen and unseen” as our Creed describes it. We who are made in God’s image and likeness are not above or outside of this Divine obra (work).
This week’s essay will select some of what the pope offers for our consideration as we observe this Day of Prayer and gear up for the Season of Creation.
First and foremost is Francis’s conviction that our Creator is not only “transcendent, beyond the power of reason, the unattainable mystery of a distant and remote God, invisible and unnamable.” Rather, Francis insists, “the very love of the Divine has been poured out into our hearts” (Romans 5:5), therefore we ourselves are enabled by the Spirit to be creative and proactive in charity.
After that deeply mystical beginning, the Holy Father’s message moves quickly to the practical level: remaining steadfast amidst adversity, of not losing heart in times of difficulty or in the face of human evil. Here the pope puts his finger on our present situation – the feeling that all is moving toward destruction, particularly in the context of our threatened planet. Francis again insists on hope, on “patient expectation.”
He addresses the theme “to hope and act with creation,” calling for humanity to join forces and walk together as women and men of good will. He admits that the challenge before us is deadly serious: impressive and awesome technological advances but which have turned us into “highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival.”
Then Francis circles back to remind us that “the Holy Spirit accompanies us at every moment…” She changes the way we exist: from predators to tillers in this garden of our Common Home which has been entrusted to our care, while acknowledging that Mother Earth still belongs to God.
Francis concludes with these words: “To hope and act with creation, then, means to live an incarnational faith, one that can enter into the suffering and hope-filled ‘flesh’ of others, sharing in the expectation of bodily resurrection… in Christ, Our Lord.”
And so, we begin this Season of Creation. Situated in this “open” space in the liturgical year, it is coming to rank with the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter. It seems almost inevitable that our Holy Father will soon declare it as an official “time,” that, like the others, points to a unique aspect of Salvation History, the cry of the Earth.
Fr. Jim Hug, SJ, chaplain at the Adrian Dominican Sisters motherhouse, and Amy Woolam Echeverria, who works with the Columban missioners, have once again produced a Catholic liturgical guide for each Sunday in this year’s season. It is a treasure: prayers, hymns and commentaries based on this Year B Sunday scriptures.
>>Download the PDF of the 2024 Season of Creation liturgical guide
While the resource confines itself to those readings, it is remarkable how it applies them to current ecological realities. One example: the Gospel for the first Sunday of this Season (22nd in Ordinary time) quotes Jesus saying that “nothing that comes from the outside can defile a person; but the things that come from within are what defile.” (Mark 7:18) To this the resource points out “the top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy.”
A suggestion: Pax Christi members might direct our parish priests and lay leaders to this resource for use during the next five Sundays.
Use this link to find more information about and resources for the Season of Creation
Joe Nangle OFM is a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace and the 2023 Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace. As a member of the Assisi Community in Washington, D.C., he is dedicated to simple living and social change. Joe also serves as the Pastoral Associate for the Latino community at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Arlington, Virginia.
Lovely and inspiring🙏🏽😊🙏🏽
We walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death these days. The enormity of death and destruction escapes us, people of color are targets for white supremacists. Humans have created a dysphoria, which is hard to contain.
So Hope is all that remains for those of us who feel helpless. Spirituality offers us Hope and comfort and gives our minds and hands direction to bring compassion then justice to everything we encounter. Our Source is mysterious, we name It God in our culture, but it is available whenever we place ourselves in Its presence. We would do well to formally commit to God and move forward Hopeful and Secure.