Christians throughout the world are celebrating Creation Time, which falls this year, as usual, from September 1 to October 4.
This year’s Creation Time theme is ‘Sustainable Energy’.
Energy is a gift from God as part of his creation but one we hardly notice… until there’s a power cut! But one in five people in the world has no access at all to electricity and two in five rely on burning anything from wood to animal excrement for cooking and heating.
2012 is the UN Year of Sustainable Energy for All, with a target of giving the whole world reliable, clean energy by 2030. This is not just a subject for the developing world. Here we need to make radical changes to move away from electricity generated by climate-change causing and increasingly expensive fossil fuels to renewable options, together with greater efficiency and lower consumption.
As Christians we need to be aware of the issues and know what we can do as individuals and as churches both to care for the planet and to care for the poor who lack energy.
Eco-Congregation Ireland (ECI) encourages churches of all traditions to celebrate Creation Time on either one Sunday, or on each of the five Sundays during Creation Time.
ECI was again involved in preparing resources, which are free to download from the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland website – www.ctbi.org.uk. Included are sermon outlines, prayers, group study notes, harvest festival ideas and background information on sustainable energy.
Dr Dermot A Lane, PP and President of the Mater Dei Institute of Education, has described these resources as “A real gift; just what the busy parish priest needs”.
How did Creation Time come about?
Creation Time is an opportunity each year for Christians to reflect on the wonder and mystery of Creation and to choose better ways in which to relate to Creation, ways that reflect God’s desire for justice and peace.
September 1 was proclaimed as a day of prayer for the environment by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989. The Orthodox church year starts that day with a commemoration of how God created the world.
On October 4 each year Roman Catholics and other churches commemorate Francis of Assisi, known by many as the patron saint of ecology.
The proposal to celebrate a Creation Time during these five weeks was made by the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in 2007.The following year the World Council of Churches Central Committee invited churches to observe Creation Time through prayer and action.