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2024 Season of Creation Reflection – “To Hope & Act with Creation” September 3rd, 2024
(By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & founder of the Oblate Ecological Initiative)
These reflections are inspired by Pope Francis’ 2024 letter for the Season of Creation. Each ponders 1 of 9 topics in Francis’ writing, with focus given to the 2024 theme of “To Hope & Act with Creation.”
“We need only take a frank look at the facts to see that our common home is falling into serious disrepair. Hope would have us recognize that…we can always redirect our steps.” (Laudato Si #61)
READ: 1st part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2024 Season of Creation (below)
(Image by Almeida, Pixabay)
REFLECTION: : How did we come to have faith? Pope Francis begins this Season with a basic question that prompts serious reflection. What is your response? In examining the theme for this year’s Season of Creation, I’m struck by various parts of the phrase “To Hope & Act with Creation”. Throughout the next several weeks we’ll be pondering this theme along with each segment of Francis’ letter. Three cheers for the Holy Spirit who gifts us with faith and evokes our creativity! During this Season, let us, along with Creation and our God of love, co-create a world of justice, a world at peace.
ACTION: The Season of Creation begins September 1 and continues through October 4. Procure and keep a Season of Creation journal. Ponder the implications of how truly hoping and acting “with Creation” might challenge, enhance and deepen your Christian calling.
“All it takes is one good person to restore hope!” (LS #71)
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READ MORE OF MAURICE’S WEEKLY REFLECTIONS
2024 Season of Creation: Join the Global Movement to Nurture Our Planet August 30th, 2024
The firstfruits of hope (Romans 8:19-25)
The Season of Creation is an annual celebration of prayer and action for our common home, celebrated by Christians everywhere from September 1 to October 4. This year’s theme is “To hope and act with Creation.”
Oblate Scholastic Musonda Choto, OMI and Fr. Jack Lau, OMI prepare Sacred Heart Church, Oakland, CA for the Season as shown in these are photos.
What is the Season of Creation? August 27th, 2024
Pope Francis calls for a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
By: Bishop Michael Pfeifer, O.M.I, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of San Angelo
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The Season of Creation is an ecumenical monthlong moment of prayerful reflection and celebration which began several years ago and calls us to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During this Season we join together as sisters and brothers of a universal family in prayer and action to renew our appreciation, our commitment, and our care and activities to protect and bring new life to Mother Earth, our Common Home, as we thank our loving God for the beautiful gift of all creation.
The theme for this Season of Creation is “To Hope and Act with Creation” and it is also the theme designated by Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer of Creation which takes place on September 1st , the first day of the annual Season of Creation, which will end on October 4th , the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the Patron Saint of ecology and is beloved by many Christian and other denominations. Pope Francis in the statement Laudato Si calls Mother Earth, our Common Home, that we will pass on to the next generations. Pope Francis’ World Day of Prayer focuses on thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father for the beautiful gift of all of creation, and asking God’s continuing blessings on this wonderful gift.
The Laudato Si Movement points out that in accord with this year’s theme of Hope, the symbol is the first fruits of hope inspired by (Rom 8;19-25) which is to produce new life. The biblical image pictures the Earth as a mother groaning as in childbirth (Rom 8;22). Saint Francis understood this when he referred often to the Earth as our sister and our mother in his Canticle of Creatures. In so many ways the present moment we live sadly shows that we are not fully relating to the Earth as a gift from our Creator but most often as a resource to be used selfishly and not to protect, to enrich, and renew this wonderful gift. “Creation is groaning” (Rom 8;22) because of our selfishness and our unsustainable actions that harm her.
August 9 – Honoring Indigenous People for their Unique Contribution to Cultural Diversity August 9th, 2024
 (Image by Marcelo Trujillo, Pixabay) |
 (Image by Kiran Hania, Pixabay) |
Paris Olympics are Behind the Curve on DEI August 1st, 2024
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Seamus P. Finn, OMI, Director of USA JPIC and OIP shares a letter he received from the president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation reflecting on some controversial elements in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics)
DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) has been an important part of the ICCR (Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility) mission in recent years. It has been indeed engaging to read different responses to the opening ceremony at the Olympics. I like Brian Grim’s reflection found here: https://bit.ly/3ykjvgT
I have given two presentations at the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation that seeks to bring the values and a religious message to the G20 meetings in recent years. They continue to labor in what some would say is a very secular and unreceptive audience, but they persist, and I like the direction they are leading us.
-Seamus P. Finn, OMI
Dear Seamus Finn,
A performance during the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics triggered a backlash as many saw a sketch meant to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as being offensive and biased. Many took the sketch to be a parody of the Last Supper of Christ, which organizers denied being the intent.
Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps apologized on Sunday for those offended by the scene. “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, I think (with) Thomas Jolly [the ceremony’s artistic director], we really did try to celebrate community tolerance,” 
Descamps said. “… If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”
Jolly said that religious subversion had never been his intention. “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.”
However, rather than being avant-garde and inclusive, the Olympic organizers appear to be behind the curve when it comes to DEI — what they purportedly were trying to promote. The latest data show a significant surge in Fortune 500 companies including religion as part of their DEI initiatives, which helps them avoid such offensive and COSTLY mistakes (one Olympic sponsor has already withdrawn in reaction to the sketch). READ FULL LETTER
