Feast Day of Creation
The Season of Creation, marked by Christians around the world, runs from September 1 to October 4. Photo: Melodie Woerman
[Episcopal News Service] Churches looking for ways to mark the Season of Creation have a new resource from the Episcopal Church.
The Season of Creation is a worldwide ecumenical Christian observance that begins with the Day of Prayer for Creation on September 1 and ends with the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology, on October 4. This year’s theme is “To hope and act with creation.”
A new nine-session, film-based curriculum entitled “Love God; Love God’s World” focuses on creation care and environmental ministry using a model similar to the Episcopal Church’s popular Sacred Ground series on race. It includes films and readings, faith-based reflections, and discussion questions written by eight lay and clergy contributors from across the church.
A variety of online resources not only describe the nine sessions but also provide help in setting up small groups, or “circles,” that will explore the series together. Full information is available once a circle is registered.
Funding from the United Thank Offering and the Episcopal Church Office of Reconciliation, Justice, and Creation Care helped with the curriculum’s development.
Another resource, the Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes, includes a variety of liturgical, musical and educational resources and has been updated for Year B. It is available for use by churches whose bishop has authorized it. That now includes 50 dioceses, The Rev’d Margaret Bullitt-Jonas told Episcopal News Service by email. Before retiring on July 1, Bullitt-Jonas was engaged in creation care ministries for the Dioceses of Western Massachusetts and Massachusetts.
The Season of Creation website also includes a variety of resources churches can use, including those especially for the Anglican Communion through its Environmental Network, which brings together materials from Anglican churches across the globe.
Retired California Bishop Marc Andrus is on the Season of Creation Steering Committee, along with Bishop Graham Usher, the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, and Paulo Ueti of the Anglican Alliance.
Additional resources around creation care, as well as advocacy and conservation information, is available on the Episcopal Church website.
The Episcopal Church also will be engaged in creation care advocacy during the Season of Creation, by hosting an event at the Church Center in New York on September 27 during Climate Week, which takes place alongside the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Call for worldwide Feast Day of Creation in 2025
During the 81st General Convention that took place in Louisville, Kentucky in June 2024, deputies and bishops adopted resolution D041, which encourages celebration of the Season of Creation across the Episcopal Church.
It also supports the growing ecumenical movement to add a worldwide Feast Day of Creation to the liturgical calendar in 2025. Because there isn’t yet consensus on the name of such an observance, it charges the presiding bishop’s staff, the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, the Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations and any interim bodies dealing with creation care to work with Anglican entities around the world on this effort.
In a June 8 online hearing of the legislative committees on Prayer Book, Liturgy & Music, to which this resolution was referred, Bullitt-Jonas testified that while attending an ecumenical seminar earlier this year, she learned that creation is the only part of the Nicene Creed that has no official feast day or season.
2025 also marks the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, which was adopted by the first ecumenical council of the Christian church in the town of ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey), to settle doctrinal questions about the divine nature of Jesus.
—Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.