A Season of Creation
There is something fitting about the Church turning our attention toward creation just as summer begins to loosen its grip and the world around us starts to change. The light softens. The evenings come a little earlier. The marsh takes on new colors. Migrating birds begin their long journeys, and the sea reminds us that creation has its own rhythms, far older than our calendars and schedules.
Each year, Christians around the world observe a Season of Creation, beginning in early September and continuing through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis is remembered for his extraordinary tenderness toward the created world, his sense of kinship with animals, earth, sky, sun, and moon, and his deep conviction that all creation belongs to God.
For Episcopalians, this season offers us an opportunity to recover something woven deeply into our faith: creation is more than scenery surrounding human life. It is part of the story of salvation itself.
Scripture begins in a garden. The prophets speak of mountains, rivers, deserts, vineyards, lions, lambs, trees, and rain. Jesus teaches beside lakes, walks through fields, notices lilies and sparrows, calms storms, breaks bread outdoors, and withdraws into wild places to pray.
And in our Eucharistic Prayer we proclaim the wonder of galaxies, suns, planets, and “this fragile earth, our island home.”
Those words feel especially close to us here in Stone Harbor.
We live surrounded by water. We know something about tides and storms, migrating birds and changing seasons. We also know how easily the beauty around us can become ordinary simply because we see it every day.
Perhaps the Season of Creation asks us to look again, to notice, to give thanks, to remember that before anything belonged to us, it belonged to God.
Traditionally, our celebration culminates around the Feast of St. Francis with the beloved Blessing of the Animals. This year our calendar will look a little different. On October 4, I will be away celebrating another beautiful expression of love and covenant, the wedding of my niece.
So rather than squeezing our creation celebration into another moment, we are going to carry the Season of Creation forward.
On Sunday, October 11 at 10:00 a.m., we will gather on the front lawn for something special:
Mass on the Grass
This Fragile Earth, Our Island Home
A Eucharist for Creation and Blessing of the Animals
Bring your dogs. Bring your cats. Bring the brave rabbit who enjoys church. Bring a photograph of a beloved animal who cannot safely travel, or of a companion you still carry in your heart.
And together we will worship beneath the sky.
There will be no organ that morning. Instead, we will let you, the congregation provide the responses, the wind move through the trees, the birds offer whatever anthem they choose, and perhaps a dog or two contribute unexpectedly to the liturgy.
We will celebrate Holy Eucharist. We will bless the animals who share our lives. We will pray for wildlife and oceans, forests and fields, creatures endangered and creatures forgotten. We will give thanks for those who care for animals and for the earth. And we will remember that human beings are neither owners standing above creation nor strangers passing through it.
We are creatures too.
We belong to this extraordinary household God has made.
Perhaps that is the gift St. Francis still offers the Church. He teaches us to see the world around us as family rather than property. Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Creatures great and small. Earth beneath our feet and air within our lungs. And perhaps, in a world where so much is treated as disposable, such reverence has become an act of faith.
So during these coming weeks, pay attention.
Listen to the birds.
Walk beside the water.
Notice what is blooming and what is fading.
Bless the creature curled beside you on the sofa.
Give thanks for the meal in front of you and the soil, rain, hands, animals, and plants that made it possible.
Allow yourself to be astonished again.
Because long before we built churches, wrote liturgies, or named holy days, God looked upon this astonishing world and called it very good.
And God still does.
I hope you will join us on October 11 as we take the Eucharist outside and remember together that this fragile earth is indeed our island home, and every creature upon it is held within the love of God.
In Christ,
Mo. Allison+
| 
