Celebrating the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation

The World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation (Creation Day or Feast of the Creation) is celebrated annually on September 1, beginning the Season of Creation. This celebration seeks to unite the universal Church through its ecumenical appeal and historical traditions.

The World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation, celebrated on September 1 every year, is the foundational day of the Season of Creation, which runs from September 1 to October 4 and culminates each year on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. This day was observed in the Orthodox Church’s liturgical traditions before being adopted by the universal Church. The Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Francis, embraced this celebration in 2015.

The feast is a time to honor God as the Creator and to reflect on the mystery of the creation of the cosmos. It's a day for repentance and prayer for the healing of the Earth, which has been damaged by human sin. More than simply celebrating the created world, this feast celebrates Creation as a foundational mystery of the Christian faith. With 2025 marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Creation Day is an opportunity to celebrate the Nicene Creed's proclamation of faith in the Triune God as Creator—in God the Father, "maker of heaven and earth"; in Christ, "through [whom] all things were made"; and in the Holy Spirit, "the giver of life."

Creation Day is a moment to praise the Triune God as Creator. Since many Christian churches have historically focused on God as the Redeemer, this feast is a valuable chance to celebrate God in a different, but equally important, light of the Creator. As Pope Benedict XVI stressed, "The Redeemer is the Creator and if we do not proclaim God in his full grandeur—as Creator and as Redeemer—we also diminish the value of the Redemption... The renewal of the doctrine of Creation and a new understanding of the inseparability of Creation and Redemption are of supreme importance.”

In 2024, Pope Francis wrote: To hope and act with creation, then, means to live an incarnational faith, one that can enter into the suffering and hope-filled ‘flesh’ of others, by sharing in the expectation of the bodily resurrection to which believers are predestined in Christ the Lord. In Jesus, the eternal Son who took on human flesh, we are truly children of the Father. Through faith and baptism, our life in the Spirit begins, a holy life, lived as children of the Father, like Jesus, since by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ lives in us. In this way, our lives can become a song of love for God, for humanity, with and for creation, and find their fullness in holiness. 

In his message for 2025, Pope Leo XIV writes: “The Encyclical Laudato Si’ has now guided the Catholic Church and many people of good will for ten years. May it continue to inspire us and may integral ecology be increasingly accepted as the right path to follow. In this way, seeds of hope will multiply, to be 'tilled and kept' by the grace of our great and unfailing Hope, who is the risen Christ. In his name, I offer all of you my blessing.”

Download resources for celebrating the Season of Creation.