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Summary
- Nine short prayers cover thanks for the earth, forgiveness, disaster victims, farmers, scientists, leaders, animals, children and personal change, with five prayers of the faithful for a church service.
- Traditional texts are quoted from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (“For Fruitful Seasons” and the Benedicite) and from Matthew Arnold’s translation of Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Sun.
- Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios made 1 September a day of prayer for the environment in 1989; Pope Francis made it a Catholic World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in 2015.
- The Season of Creation runs from 1 September to 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis.
- Genesis 2:15, Psalm 24:1, Leviticus 25:23 and Psalm 104 describe the earth as God’s and people as its keepers; Christians still disagree about the causes of climate change.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 1:31; 2:15; 8:22; Leviticus 25:23; Psalm 24:1; 104:24; Romans 8:22). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Morning Prayer, Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, pp. 11–12; Prayers, “For Fruitful Seasons,” p. 40; The Rogation Days, p. 261. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Sabatier, Paul. Life of St. Francis of Assisi. Translated by Louise Seymour Houghton. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894. Chapter on the Canticle of the Sun, with Matthew Arnold’s translation. Project Gutenberg eBook no. 18787. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18787
- Dimitrios I, Ecumenical Patriarch. “Message on the Day of the Protection of the Environment,” 1 September 1989. Ecumenical Patriarchate. https://ec-patr.org/en/01/09/00/00/message-of-his-all-holiness-the-ecumenical-patriarch-6/
- Francis, Pope. Letter for the institution of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 6 August 2015. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150806_lettera-giornata-cura-creato.html
- Francis, Pope. Laudato si’, encyclical letter, 24 May 2015, paragraphs 1, 23 and 246. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
- Vatican News. “Season of Creation begins with worldwide prayer for our common home,” September 2026. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2026-09/season-creation-world-day-prayer-environment-church-ecumenical.html
- Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. “An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming” (2009). https://cornwallalliance.org/evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/
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