Season of Creation

By Reverend Andy Fleming, Associate Chaplain

As this week started, so did the Season of Creation. The Season of Creation is an ecumenical approach to raise awareness and action for God’s gift of creation by a coalition of different expressions of the Christian faith from around the world, including the Anglican Communion.

This year’s theme is Peace with Creation. Drawing on the prophet Isaiah’s depiction of Creation being broken and desolate because of humanity’s brokenness, damaging impact and injustice, the stated hope is for 'Creation to find peace when justice is restored'.

The Garden of Peace symbolises this hope. The depiction of a dove carrying an olive branch as a sign of a new period of peace. The story of Noah’s ark begins with the earth being filled with violence and culminates with Noah sending out a dove which eventually returns carrying a fresh olive branch, that is now widely recognised as a sign of new peace.

The Anglican Board of Mission is also encouraging a collective response to work towards healing our common home. If you’d like to contribute, you can support the Season of Creation here.

Of course, helping our planet to thrive involves a year-round daily effort. There are many awesome actions that Radford community is taking to ensure the aims of the Season of Creation are embedded into our school’s practices.

The Season of Creation ends on 4 October. The day in the Church calendar that celebrates St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology. St Francis is well known for his deep love of nature and animals. For Francis, ‘brotherhood’ included all of God’s creation where an animal was as much his brother as any human. Perhaps we could learn from St Francis in order to restore and bring peace to Creation.

Prayer for the Season of Creation, adapted from Season of Creation Celebration Guide 2025.

Creator God,
You provide for us the gift of life that unites us in care for our common home.
However, we have become estranged from one another and from your Creation.
In our greed and destructive impulses have fractured our relationships with you, with others, and with the Earth.
Fertile fields have become barren, forests lie desolate, oceans and rivers are polluted.
Thriving communities have become places of suffering, and the earth cries out.
Inspire us and empower us to work with compassion for the end of conflict,
and for the full restoration of broken relationships –
with you, with our communities, with the human family,
and with all Creation.

Amen.