Season of Creation 2026
We are now in the Season of Creation from 1st September to 4th October. This year’s theme, “Living Water”, explores Ezekiel 47: 9 and 12 as a powerful biblical vision of hope and ecological healing. The image of living water flowing from God’s sanctuary reveals divine healing that renews land, water, biodiversity, and human responsibility towards the whole creation.
The theme that Pope Leo XIV chose for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on 1st September 2026 is taken from Isaiah 2:4. “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks”.
The Holy Father highlights the links between armed conflict, environmental destruction, and human suffering. War creates “a vicious cycle, which destroys ecosystems, contaminates essential resources, such as air and water, and undermines food security”. To break this cycle, he suggests that authentic ecological conversion and a peaceful world demand that we “renew our hearts.” This inner transformation allows new possibilities to be opened. He suggests that ‘What has been used for destruction, can be redirected toward life, toward the care of the poor, the nourishment of the hungry, and the safeguarding of creation.’
Pope Leo states ‘the true tools for building peace are not weapons of destruction, instead they are truth, dialogue, patience, goodness, justice, mercy, understanding, care and love. These flow from hearts shaped by the Gospel and sustained by God’s grace. Only these qualities possess the power to transform individuals, renew communities and heal the wounds of our world.
The World Day of Prayer is another opportunity for us to connect with our creator God and allow the Lord to redefine our relationship with the environment: from one of consumption and control to one of care and protection.
Each of us is called to allow our hearts to be renewed, so that we might seek peace and care for creation. Scripture tells us to guard our hearts, for everything we do flows from them (cf. Prov 4:23).
May the Lord grant us the courage to walk along this path, so that in our time, swords may indeed be beaten into plowshares, and the promise of the Gospel may take deeper root in our world, and the peace of Christ may reign over all of creation.