Rev'd Stephen Hollinghurst is Mission Enabler for the Environment at Hereford Diocese. He talks about the Season of Creation and the diocese's Environment Day coming up on 28th September.
Every year throughout September until St Francis Day on the 4th of October, the Church worldwide celebrates a Season of Creation. You can read more about this here. This year in Hereford Diocese one of the ways we are marking this is via a second environment day on the 28th of September at St Laurence's, Church Stretton, click here for more details and to book a place for that day.
St Francis is known for the importance he placed on creation as a central part of his faith, and this is especially captured in his writing which we often call the Canticle of the Creatures. A good place to explore this further and read the full text is this Franciscan website.
In the introduction, the website says the following: ‘If we view Creation only in terms of ecology, nature, botany and biology we see ourselves apart from God’s Creation, instead of being a part of His Creation – exclusive rather than inclusive. If we view Francis only in terms of a modern day eco-warrior we completely miss his spirituality and the depth of the Franciscan charisma.
‘For Francis, as God is Our Father, he saw family relationships within all Creation. Birds, fire and wind are brothers. The moon, stars and water are sisters and our planet Earth who nourishes us is Mother. Creation is nature viewed with The Creator in mind, creation is fullness, life and community. Creation becomes fraternity.’
This echoes what Paul writes in Romans 8:15-25, all creation are children of God with us and the focus of God’s mission and therefore the focus of Christian faith. We sometimes have only a human focus of God’s salvation in Christ, but it is the whole creation that is God’s focus, and therefore needs to be ours too.
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