Recommit to Our Common Home
Season of Creation is a Time to Renew Our Relationship with God’s Earth
Drake Starling
September 5, 2025
Every year, from September 1 to October 4, Christians around the world unite in prayer, reflection, and action for the Season of Creation. This ecumenical season, beginning with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and ending on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, invites us to deepen our awareness of the urgent ecological crisis and to recommit ourselves to caring for our common home.
Why This Season Matters
This year’s theme, “To Hope and Act with Creation,” calls us to more than reflection – it calls us to courage. Hope is not wishful thinking but a spiritual practice rooted in action. As people of faith, we cannot be passive as rising global temperatures, polluted waters, and disappearing species diminish the sacred gift of life. Instead, we are called to embody hope by living in right relationship with one another and with all creation.
The Season of Creation is more than a time of prayer; it is a prophetic witness. As Pope Francis told us in Laudato Si’, “We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us.” Our responsibility is to ensure that future generations inherit a world capable of sustaining all forms of life.
Many political leaders choose inaction in the face of climate disasters and, worse, pursue harmful policies that promote extractive industries and eliminate essential environmental protections. They disregard and exploit nature, most of the time because it enriches companies and wealthy donors. We are called to remind our leaders that creation is not a commodity but a sacred trust.
Moving Forward
Throughout this season, communities around the world are finding creative ways to bring the message of creation care to life:
- Hosting prayer services outdoors, reminding us that creation itself is a cathedral.
- Leading educational forums on the climate crisis and Catholic Social Justice teaching.
- Organizing acts of advocacy– urging lawmakers to defend clean air, protect public lands, and invest in renewable energy.
- Choosing lifestyle changes – reducing waste, conserving water, and supporting sustainable practices in our daily lives.
- Taking action with NETWORK – signing up for NETWORK’s alerts to engage in advocacy opportunities. Right now, that includes speaking out in the EPA’s Endangerment Finding Public Comment Period. This recent NETWORK analysis addresses the Trump administration’s move to rescind Endangerment Finding. Add your name here and tell the EPA to keep the Endangerment Finding and protect our air, water, and our climate. The Comment Period closes September 22, so make sure to make your views known this Season of Creation!
Each of these actions, large or small, is part of a larger movement of ecological conversion – recognizing that the cry of the Earth and “the cry of the poor” are one and the same.
Journey of Hope
One particularly meaningful way to embody this year’s call is through Pilgrimages of Hope for Creation, a national initiative where Catholics and faith communities journey together in prayerful solidarity with the Earth. From parish grounds to city streets, these pilgrimages offer a tangible way to pray with our feet, build community, and take steps—literally—toward a more just and sustainable world (learn more here).
This Season of Creation, let us embrace hope as action. Whether we join a pilgrimage, organize an event in our parish, or speak up for stronger environmental protections, each step we take is part of a greater journey of faith. Together, rooted in the Spirit and in Catholic Social Justice teaching, we can witness to the truth that care for creation is care for life itself.