To mark the Season of Creation and lend support to Global Climate Action Week, CPJ hosted a week-long national prayer chain. Prayers for Creation began on Friday, September 20 and continued through Friday, September 27, 2019. People across Canada prayed, an hour at a time, alone and in community.
Here are some of the prayers they shared:
“Thank you for the invitation to join with many others in this hour of prayer for Creation. On Thursday evening, Sept. 19, I had joined an ecumenical group of people for an Akathist Prayer Service hosted by our Ukrainian Catholic Church in Saskatoon. It is a beautiful prayer of praise and thanksgiving. I spent the first 15 minutes slowly praying this prayer. Then I prayed Sr. Marlene Kelly’s prayers of intercession received from your CPJ email and other intercessory prayers found on websites. I practice centering prayer twice a day so, spent the last 15 minutes of my hour resting in the silence.” –Anonymous
“My hour of prayer for climate justice and creation was from 5-6pm on Friday Sept 20th in London, ON.
I spent it walking my dog in nature, on our daily trail. My faithful friends and I call the woods our church, our place of worship (amongst others) because it is like Mother Nature’s outdoor cathedral. It is an environmentally sensitive area (ESA) but already developers have encroached upon the surrounding land, tragically typical of the ongoing and insatiable onslaught of climate INjusticessecondary to ‘capitalism’ and ‘progress.’
For as long as the remainder of this forest is preserved, I can walk and pray to God about the peace, beauty and perfection of Creation (as exemplified by the woods), and express gratitude for this piece of heaven I get to ground myself in every day. I have been praying for years in these woods, especially for them to be preserved, so I have been inadvertently praying for climate justice all that time and didn’t even know it.” — kelly
“My family usually prays at 5:30 as a daily prayer, but on this day we will extend our prayer from 5:30-6:30 to pray for a better world, clean air and water for our kids. As a Muslim, it is in our scripture to take care of God’s creation which includes the very thing humans were created from which is soil.” — Halima
“I’m praying for creation this September because climate change is affecting people I care about. From Puerto Rico to the Bahamas to Bangladesh, lives are being lost, people are suffering, climate refugees are fleeing. God help us manage your gift, creation, in a way that allows the children of the world to thrive.” — Sharon