This year’s Season of Creation concentrates on the theme “Living Water”, calling for us all to address the growing scarcity of fresh water and the inequality of access to it. Pope Leo asked for personal action by fixing leaks, taking shorter showers, turning off faucets not in use, and avoiding polluting drains and rivers.
UN agencies report around 2.1 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water, while 106 million rely exclusively on rivers, lakes, or other untreated surface water.
The pope offered this prayer and reflection available on the Vatican website.
Pope Leo asked for an “ecological conversion”today during a Mass for the Care of Creation” celebrated in the Vatican Gardens to begin the Season of Creation: September 1-October 4″ Here are some of his words:
” All creation speaks to us of the greatness of its Creator, if only our eyes and hearts remain open to such a great mystery.
Similarly, the Gospel passage from Matthew (cf. Mt 6:24–34) invites us to contemplate creation, while emphasizing the Lord’s special love for the human person. As we look upon the birds of the air and the lilies of the field with wonder — so precious in the eyes of their Creator — we come to understand the greatness of God’s love for us. If the Lord does not fail to bestow such splendid beauty upon plants and animals and provide for all their needs, how much more attentive will he be to the needs of his beloved sons and daughters!
Today, as we accept the invitation to pause and reflect before the works of God, we begin the “Season of Creation” — a period of five weeks devoted to prayer and commitment to the care of our “common home.” On this Day, therefore, and in the weeks ahead, let us set aside a few moments to pause from the frenzy of our daily lives, in order to savor the profound harmony of which we ourselves are a part. Let us place in “silent mode” the many noises generated by human activity, so that we may hear the melodious voice of creation, through which God, the Author of all things, speaks to us.
This task of contemplation, which disposes us to an encounter with the Lord, is a first step towards an “authentic ecological conversion, where the effects of our encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in our relationship with the world around us” (Message for the Eleventh World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 1 September 2026).
From contemplating creation and encountering its Creator, there arises an awareness of our particular place within God’s wondrous plan, and of the responsibility that we bear both personally and collectively for preserving the original harmony. Thus, as we become conscious of our shortcomings and failures, we can renew our commitment to restoring the relationships among all creatures according to the will of their Creator.
For this reason, the Message for today’s World Day echoes “the prophetic call to ‘beat swords into ploughshares’ (Is 2:4)… to transform harm into life.” It is not yet too late, and the Season of Creation calls us to a profound conversion: “What has been used for destruction can be redirected toward life, toward the care of the poor, the nourishment of the hungry, and the safeguarding of creation” (ibid.).”
We begin the Season of Creation with Van Gogh’s Sower in the Morning Sun, which he painted in 1888. Inspired by Jesus’ parable, the artist pictures the sower sewing on rocky ground, having crossed the path where some seed has fallen. The birds of the air fly in to devour it.
Behind the sower is the good ground ripe for harvest, but the sower doesn’t see it. He’s intent on the rocky land before him.
The morning sun filling the sky with yellow light is the sun of creation, the everyday sun, beginning its journey from one end of the skies to the other. ( Psalm 19) Like a bridegroom, like an athlete, it’s on its course. “Nothing is hidden from its heat.”
The sun is also Jesus Christ. He is the Sun that never sets.
The church’s morning prayer often reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Sun that fills our day, though we may be hardly aware of his presence, like the sower in Van Gogh’s painting.
Let us give thanks to our Savior, who came into this world as God’s presence among us. –Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy. Lord Jesus, you are the rising Sun, the first-fruits of the future resurrection grant that we may not sit in the shadow of death but walk in the light of life. Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy. Show us your goodness, present in every creature, that we may contemplate your glory everywhere. Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy. Do not allow us to be overcome by evil today, but grant that we may overcome evil through the power of good. (Sunday, Morning Prayer)
In the Season of Creation we bond with creation and advocate for its needs. Let’s remind ourselves of its beauty this month and ask how to care for its needs.
Sunday, “the day of the sun”, is the most important day of our week. We need to rediscover its beauty and our “Sabbath Rest.” For these first days of September let’s look at the sun, source of earth’s life, through the eyes of the painter Van Gogh.
Water is another cornerstone of creation. It pervades creation and blesses us with new life in Baptism.
September 8th is the Feast of the Birth of Mary. Her name identified the plants and flowers that bring healing and joy to the human family. We will remember them in the days of September.
September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, is a day when “all the trees of the forest shout for joy.”
We’re reading Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians and the Gospel of Luke together these days at Mass. The two may be more closely connected than we suspect. Luke wrote some years later than Paul, but his audience like those in the church of Corinth.
Theophilus, to whom Luke dedicates his gospel, could easily be one of Corinth’s better-off Christians. He would see the lack of concern for the poor in his community that Jesus condemns in Luke’s gospel. That unconcern appeared at table, in the celebration of the Eucharist in the Corinthian church, and Paul condemns it. (1 Corinthians 11, 17-22) In Luke’s gospel, Jesus condemns that same unconcern for the poor as well.
Luke begins Jesus’ ministry in Galilee with his visit to Nazareth (Luke 4, 16-30) where he’s not recognized by his own. They know him too well and are ready to throw him to his death over the hill.
The Corinthians–how many we are unsure– fail to recognize the humble Savior whom Paul preaches. “I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2, 1-5)
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is teacher and Lord bringing God’s word to the towns of Galilee. He brings God’s word to Corinth as well, but the Corinthians are attracted to various disciples of Jesus, causing “jealousy and rivalry among you…Whenever someone says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another,’I belong to Apollos,’ are you not merely men? What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord assigned each one.”
God plants and waters the growth of his church; the disciples are disciples, only disciples, who must have “the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians, 3, 1-9)
Luke has a church like Corinth in mind when he writes his gospel. How about our church too, as we take sides. “I belong to…” Good to read these two readings together now in a church where so many take sides.
Following the publication of his letter, Laudato si’ in 2015, Pope Francis called for observing a Season of Creation from September I to October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was joined in calling for the celebration by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch, Bartholomew. Later, the World Council of Churches joined in.
Pope Leo recently endorsed Laudato si’ and its call for environmental conversion::
“…given the evidence in various parts of the world, our earth is being ravaged. On all sides, injustice, violations of international law and the rights of peoples, grave inequalities and the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation, pollution and the loss of biodiversity…
Environmental justice – implicitly proclaimed by the prophets – can no longer be regarded as an abstract concept or a distant goal. It is an urgent need that involves much more than simply protecting the environment. For it is a matter of justice – social, economic and human.
For believers it is also a duty born of faith, since the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ, in whom all things were created and redeemed. In a world where the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change, deforestation and pollution, care for creation becomes an expression of our faith and humanity.”
Now is the time to follow words with deeds.”
I hope to offer reflections on the Season of Creation each day this month.
Mark’s gospel today tells the gruesome story of the death of John the Baptist, which prefigures the death of Jesus. King Herod ordered his death, prompted by Herodias. Human sinfulness is on display in this court banquet, which the artist (above) describes very well. The women smugly presenting John’s head. The man pointing his finger at Herod and Herod denying it all. John’ eyes are still open, his mouth still speaks.
Venerable Bede says that John’s death is like Jesus’ death because they both embraced the same values. If John stayed silent about Herod’s conduct, he may have gained a few peaceful years of life, but he was more concerned with what God thought than what powerful people on earth thought.
“His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: I am the truth?
“He preached the freedom of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly men; he was locked away in the darkness of prison, though he came bearing witness to the Light of life.
“But heaven notices– not the span of our lives, but how we live them, speaking the truth.” (Bede, Homily)
Wonderful line: It doesn’t matter how many years we live, but how we live them, “speaking the truth.”
For John that meant dying for the truth. What does it mean for us? It may not mean getting our heads chopped off, but we should expect some scars from the daily battle for God’s truth. ” May we fight hard for the confession of what you teach.” (Opening prayer)
The desire Augustine saw in himself he also saw in us, a desire that brings restlessness and a thirst only satisfied at the fountain of true wisdom and everlasting love – Jesus Christ.
“‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’“The Lord himself, our God Jesus Christ, is the fountain of life; and he calls us to himself so that we may drink from him. Who will drink? Whoever loves; whoever is filled with the word of God; whoever adores enough, whoever desires enough; whoever is on fire with the love of wisdom.
See the source from which that fountain flows. It comes from the same place that the manna came from in the wilderness – for the same person is both bread and fountain, Christ our Lord and God, for whom we should always hunger. Even if we eat him, the bread, with love, even if we devour him with desire, let us still hunger for him like starving people. So when we drink him, the fountain, let us always drink him with overflowing love, filled with longing and delighting in the gentle taste of his sweetness.
For the Lord is gentleness and delight. We may eat and drink of him but still we will be hungry and thirst for more; for he is our food and drink that can never be entirely consumed. He can be eaten but there will always be more left. He can be drunk but he can never be drained dry. Our bread is eternal; our fountain lasts for ever, our fountain is sweet.
So Isaiah says: come to the water all you who are thirsty – the fountain is for the thirsty, not for the surfeited. He calls the hungry and the thirsty to himself, and they can never drink enough: the more they drink, the more they desire to drink.
Spiritual writers after Augustine took up the Augustine’s insights:
If you are thirsty, drink from the fountain of life; if you are hungry, eat the bread of life. Blessed are they who hunger for that bread and thirst for that fountain; they eat and drink for ever and still they desire to eat and drink. For it is lovely above all things, that which is always eaten and drunk, always hungered and thirsted for. ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good.’” St.Columbanus
The Church repeats his teaching in the prayer for his feast:
Renew in your Church, we pray, O Lord, the spirit with which you endowed your Bishop Saint Augustine that, filled with the same spirit, we may thirst for you, the sole fount of true wisdom,and seek you, the author of heavenly love.. Amen
St. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354 to Patricius, a pagan, and Monica, a fervent Christian. Monica, venerated as a saint, raised Augustine as a Christian, but he drifted away from that faith and practice, finding no wisdom in the Christian scriptures.
Intelligent, ambitious, and interested in everything the world had to offer, he found prestigious teaching positions in Rome and later in Milan, constantly searching for meaning in the philosophies of the day. For some years he lived with a woman with whom he had a son, Adeodatus.
In Milan, his mother Monica encouraged him to listen to the bishop Ambrose, who introduced him to the beauty and truth of the scriptures. Augustine was baptized and for more than 35 year was bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa, where he died on August 28, 430, as Vandal armies prepared to lay siege to the city.
Augustine’s many writings are treasured in the church. The classic account of his life, his Confessions, describes his discovery of how God was with him from life’s beginning till the present. He was thirsting for God and only God brings true happiness, he said. Augustine came to know God in an intimate way:
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
“O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me’”
Here’s a biography of Augustine by Pope Benedict XVI
In a beautiful section of his Confessions St. Augustine describes his mother Monica’s last days at Ostia, the seaport of Rome, where they were preparing to sail for their home in Africa. Monica, taken sick, was on her way to another homeland.
The two of them were “leaning against a window looking out on a garden…inquiring what you are and what the eternal life of the saints would be like, for ‘Eye has not seen nor ear heard no human heart conceived it’”
“For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything this life holds,” his mother said, “ What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. There was only one thing I desired to live for in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?”
Shortly after, Monica fell unconscious from the fever.
She revived and said to Augustine and his brother at her side, “You are to bury your mother here”.
“It would be better for you to be buried in your own homeland,” his brother said to her.
“‘What silly talk!’ she replied, ‘Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.’
“Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could manage, she fell silent, and the pain of the disease grew worse.”
His mother’s death was a graced time when they drank in their thirst from “the fountain of life which is you”, Augustine wrote.
