Praying at home today:
The Season of Creation:
Cultural ecology

For four weeks, following the first Sunday in September until the day before Harvest Sunday, we will be focussing on the season of creation, in preparation for the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow.

Although we will follow our usual form of prayer, our readings and some other material will follow those given in Daily Prayer of the Scottish Episcopal Church for this Season of Creation.

This is a good time to be grateful for our beautiful, yet fragile world, and to dedicate ourselves anew as faithful stewards to its protection.

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A warm welcome to PrayingAtHome.com, where you can find worship resources for praying at home today or wherever you are.

We hope these readings, prayers, music and the short reflection will help you stay in touch with the Church and to sustain you on your journey through life.

If this is your first visit to this website, then you might like to read about the common elements and the suggested structure for each day’s prayer.
Everything’s optional!

Opening to the Word

You can spend a few moments in silence,
focussing on your breathing
to become more mindful of the present moment
and to open yourself more fully
to God’s presence within you.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
From whom and through whom and to whom are all things.
To God be the glory for ever. Amen.

Romans 11:33,36

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
For God has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in God’s holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
and do not swear deceitfully.

Psalm 24:1-4

Short reading

Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy

Flumina plaudent manu;
simul montes exsultabunt.

Que les fleuves battent des mains,
qu’avec eux les montagnes poussent des cris de joie.

Psalm 97(98):8

The Liturgy of the Word

Here is today’s Bible reading.

• Psalm 97(98)

Short reflection

During these four weeks of the Season of Creation, I’m reading Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato si’, mi’ Signore – Praise to you, my Lord (LS) – and I hope to share with you a few nuggets from the Church’s social teaching on Creation and our stewardship of this planet we call our home.

In this fourth week, he explores cultural ecology (LS101).

Cultural ecology: local varieties

Since everything is closely interrelated, we need to look for solutions that embrace and clearly respect human and social dimensions (LS137).

Today’s globalised economy and its out-of-control consumerist vision are diminishing the immense variety of cultures, which is the heritage of all humanity.

Everywhere we go throughout the world we see signs of uniformity as big corporations continue their takeover of our world – indeed all major airports tend to look the same.

And yet local problems cannot be resolved by uniform regulations or technological interventions; all members of the community are needed to address the new processes challenging those communities; they need to be based in the local culture itself.

Just as “life and the world are dynamic realities, so our care for the world must also be flexible and dynamic. Merely technological solutions run the risk of addressing symptoms and not the more serious underlying problems” (LS144).

Francis further asserts that there is a need to respect the rights of peoples and cultures, recognising that each social group’s development is conditional, presupposing a “historical process which takes place within a cultural context and demands the constant and active involvement of local people from within their local culture” (LS144).

Furthermore, you cannot impose quality of life from outside a culture; it must be understood as part of the world of symbols and customs belonging to each human group.

The human family benefits from its living diversity; uniformity cannot be imposed without stifling it; we’re all the poorer if we have to live within a cultural straitjacket.

Often, environmental exploitation and degradation have serious and long-term effects on local communities. This is more than exhausting their resources, which alone is bad enough; cultural identities that have taken centuries to build can easily be destroyed, and this disappearance can be as serious as the loss of a species of plant or animal (LS145).

So it is essential to care especially for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions, often at most risk of annihilation. They have a special relationship with the land, acknowledging it as a gift from God and their ancestors; it is sacred space with which they need to interact to retain their identity and values. They know best how to care for that land, yet they are often pressurised to abandon their homelands in favour of agricultural or mining projects undertaken with no regard for the degradation of nature and culture (LS146).

And this degradation affects us all.

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Responsory

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers;
the heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants;

For they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.

Therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left.
The wine dries up, the vine languishes,
all the merry-hearted sigh.

Isaiah 24:4-7

Music for reflection

Prayer Suggestions

Creation waits in hope for God’s children to be revealed.
Creation waits in hope for God’s children to be revealed.

That Creation may be set free from its bondage to decay.
For God’s children to be revealed.

Glory to God, Source of all Being, Eternal Word and Holy Spirit.
Creation waits in hope for God’s children to be revealed.

Romans 8:19-21

Celebrating Jerome (Priest & Teacher),
we continue our journey in faith today:

• for all preparing for the COP26 Climate Conference
• for the small steps we take to combat climate change
• for new parents (natural and adoptive) and their families
• for all who inspire us.

(In Holy Trinity, Stirling, we invite you to pray today
for the Scottish Episcopal Institute, its staff and students.)

For all who have asked for our prayers.

a moment of silence

Pray for us all
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

We can say the Lord’s Prayer in any language or version we choose.
Here it is, in English, Latin and French.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom,
the power and the glory are yours, 
now and for ever.
Amen.

Pater Noster

Pater noster, qui es in cælis;
sanctificetur nomen tuum:
adveniat regnum tuum;
fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie:
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris:
et ne nos inducas in tentationem:
sed libera nos a malo.

Quia tuum est regnum,
et potestas, et gloria, in saecula.
Amen.

La Prière du Seigneur (2017)

Notre Père, qui es aux cieux,
que ton nom soit sanctifié,
que ton règne vienne,
que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain de ce jour.
Pardonne-nous nos offenses,
comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés.
Et ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation
mais délivre-nous du Mal.

Car c’est à toi qu’appartiennent le règne,
la puissance et la gloire
pour les siècles des siècles. Amen.

L’Église Catholique de Paris

Concluding prayer

God Most High,
maker of heaven and earth,
you created humankind in your own image
and entrusted the whole world to human care:
give us grace to serve you faithfully,
that we might be trustworthy stewards of your creation,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Collect for the Season of Creation

Returning to the world

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Benedicamus Domino.
Deo gratias.

Thank you for joining us in praying at home.
Oremus pro invicem.

In these strange times, we are called to trust

* You can find more organ music from Holy Trinity Church, Stirling
on Alistair Warwick‘s website and on SoundCloud

There are several books by Brother Roger of the Taizé Community from many booksellers.

You can buy The Complete Chronicles of Narnia at Bookshop.org

Praying at Home Today: Acknowledgements

The lectionary for weekdays is taken from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

In that lectionary, the readings are in the following order: Old Testament reading, Psalm, New Testament reading; we have changed the order to the more usual OT, Psalm and NT.

English Bible texts are usually from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Latin Bible texts are from Biblia Sacra Vulgata, and are in the Public Domain.

French Bible texts are usually from Version Segond 21, copyright © 2007 Société Biblique de Genève by Société Biblique de Genève.

Images, unless otherwise stated, are from lockdown in Scotland, by Alistair Warwick.

Music engraved by The Art of Music.

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