World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

The first day of September is celebrated by Christians around the world as the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. It also marks the beginning of the Season of Creation, which will conclude on the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, October 4.

During this time, Christians are asked to join in prayer and work for the care of our common home. The theme for 2024 is “Hope and Act with Creation,” drawn from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans (8:19-25) where he explains what it means to live according to the Spirit.

In his message for the day, Pope Francis said that to hope and act with "creation means above all to join forces and to walk together with all men and women of good will."

The pope said, "Salvation embraces creation as an 'earthly paradise,' mother earth, which is meant to be a place of joy and a promise of happiness for all. Our Christian optimism is founded on a living hope: it realizes that everything is ordered to the glory of God, to final consummation in his peace and to bodily resurrection in righteousness, as we pass 'from glory to glory.' Nonetheless, in the passage of time, we are not exempt from pain and suffering: the whole creation groans (cf. Rom 8:19-22), we Christians groan (cf. vv. 23-25), and the Spirit himself groans (cf. vv. 26-27). This groaning expresses apprehension and suffering, together with longing and desire. It gives voice to our trust in God and our reliance on his loving yet demanding presence in our midst, as we look forward to the fulfilment of his plan, which is joy, love and peace in the Holy Spirit."

Pope Francis called the protection of creation not only an ethical issue "but one that is eminently theological, for it is the point where the mystery of man and the mystery of God intersect. This intersection can be called 'creative,' since it originates in the act of love by which God created human beings in Christ. That creative act of God enables and grounds the freedom and morality of all human activity. We are free precisely because we were created in the image of God who is Jesus Christ."

The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation was begun by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in 1989, but it was adopted by the Catholic Church in 2015, the same year that Pope Francis issued his encyclical letter Laudato Sí: Care for Our Common Home.