The Season of Creation is an annual ecumenical celebration that takes place from September 1, the World day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, to October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. During this celebration, we join our worldwide ecumenical family in prayer and action to protect our common home.
Local SoC Opportunities
SE Michigan Interfaith Climate Justice Initiative (ICJI) is a growing ecumenical coalition of churches and faith-based organizations who gather to celebrate the Season of Creation for broader impact across the Metro-Detroit area. Our Rochester Area Catholic Family of Parishes is part of this coalition!
Click here for local opportunities for learning, prayer, reflection, and action to protect our common home for the 2024 Season of Creation.
Additional Resources
2023 Season of Creation – Let Justice and Peace Flow
Week 1 — Season Kickoff
Week 2 — Taking Action to Care for Our Common Home
Week 3 — Protecting Our Water Resources: Proper Hazardous Waste Disposal
Week 4 — Protecting Our Water Resources: PFAS Awareness
Survey Results — How Our Parishioners Make a Difference
2022 Season of Creation
Week 1 — Announcing the 2022 Season of Creation and World Day of Prayer
Week 2 — Creation: The First Book of Revelation
Week 3 — The Cry of the Earth becomes the Cry of the Poor
Week 4 — Water: A Basic and Inalienable Right
2021 Season of Creation
Week 1 — 2021 Season of Creation and World Day of Prayer
Week 2 — Learn to Care for our Common Home
Week 3 — Assess how each of us can better care for our Common Home
Week 4 — Call to Action Now
Week 5 — Advocate to Protect our Common Home
The Pope’s Encyclical
On Care for Our Common Home (Laudato Si’) is the new appeal from Pope Francis addressed to “every person living on this planet” for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. Pope Francis calls the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of our environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. This encyclical is written with both hope and resolve, looking to our common future with candor and humility.
The title is taken from the first line of the encyclical, “Laudato si’, mi Signore,” or “Praise be to you, my Lord.” In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. The encyclical is divided into six chapters which together provide a thorough analysis of human life and its three intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth:
- “What is Happening to Our Common Home”
- “The Gospel of Creation”
- “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis”
- “Integral Ecology”
- “Lines of Approach and Action”
- “Ecological Education and Spirituality”
While Laudato Si’ is the first encyclical to focus on the environment and its destruction in such a comprehensive way, its foundation rests in a long history of Church teaching on creation.
Read the full text of Laudato Si’ online here.