Pope announces Season of Creation 2024
Submitted by David Babcock, St. Augustine’s Parish, Baldwinsville, and Geri Wagner, All Saints Parish, Syracuse
Pope Francis has announced that the Season of Creation 2024 starting on Sunday, September 1 and ending on Friday, October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, will focus on the theme: “To Hope and Act with Creation.” Love and hope for each other and for God’s creation need to be central to our Christian lives. Lord God, help all of us to continue to find love and hope more fully in our lives ahead and to transform that hope into actions honoring your creation!
Pope Francis officially began commemorating and celebrating the annual Season of Creation in the Catholic Church in 2015 as a follow up to his encyclical letter, “Laudato Si (Praise Be), On Care for our Common Home” issued in May 2015. In that encyclical letter, we are all called to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion and commitment together. We recall with special intention during this Season of Creation that God’s earth is a gift rather than primarily a resource to be used. We need to increase our actions toward treating God’s earth with respect and dignity. God gives with abundance but also expects us to manage creation wisely.
During this Season of Creation, aligning with the worldwide theme, let us recall the words of St. Augustine: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” Let our “holy anger,” like a mother in the grief of labor, move us through prayer toward the courage to be hopeful and into actions of caring for God’s creation. Certainly, we have seen in recent years what can happen if we continue our present path.
Let us remind ourselves that all of life is a gift from our loving, generous God. And when we accept and believe this, we are transformed to become a testimony to God’s power and love, laboring to open ourselves up and allow God to work in our lives and for all God’s creation.
Within that testimony is the hope and expectation for a better future. But to hope does not mean to stand still and quiet; rather, we are actively striving for new life amidst the struggles. How much time do we have to help save God’s creation? Time is of the essence.
What can we do? Where can we start? First, we pray to thank God for the wonders of creation, to humble ourselves and to reflect on how we can make a difference. An examination of conscience is also fruitful. What can we do as individuals and households to better care for God’s creation? How can we join with others that want to do the same? Some parishes in our diocese have formed parish creation care teams; perhaps you and your parish can consider forming a creation care team for your own community.
Many resources are available to assist us. For example, Catholic Climate Covenant (catholicclimatecovenant.org), working through the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, assists dioceses and parishes by providing useful information, tools and other resources. Our diocese has a Care for Our Common Home Task Force and a webpage on our diocesan website that contains useful materials (syracusediocese.org/laudato-si). During this year’s Season of Creation, a group of diocesan Catholics will be working together with the Carbon Crew project (carboncrewproject.org) to assess our personal/household energy “footprints” and identify various ways we can better care for God’s earth. Stay tuned for what this group learns from its experiences with the Carbon Crew tools.
As Pope Francis wrote in paragraph 14 of Laudato Si, “Everyone’s talents and involvement are needed to redress the damage caused by human abuse of God’s creation.” Let us join with our brothers and sisters around the world to notice and care for the gifts of life around us.
All of life is a gift from our loving, generous God to be treasured. When we accept and believe that all life is a gift, we are transformed, and the way we see, and the way we act, will change. As we become more engaged as a testimony to God’s power, God’s overflowing love and hope will more fully enter our lives so it can spill out into all of creation!
The Diocese of Syracuse’s Care for Our Common Home Task Force is here to help with prayer and with actions caring for God’s creation. Contact the Task Force (by email at [email protected] or by phone at 315-263-9023) for more ideas or other assistance.
