The creation of a festival

THE idea of God’s creative work is deeply and intentionally woven into Christian liturgy: in our prayers and in eucharistic worship, in the way in which we use material elements, and within the rhythm and structure of the church yr itself. In recent years, nevertheless, many around the globe have advocated something more: a dedicated liturgical celebration held on a typical date across worldwide denominations.

We might pinpoint the start of this movement to 1989, when the Ecumenical Patriarch at the moment, Dimitrios, issued a call for your entire Christian world to offer thanks for the gift of creation — and to wish for its protection — on 1 September every year. Led by the World Council of Churches, this Day of Prayer was expanded right into a Season of Creation, running from the start of September to 4 October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis joined the decision for a World Day of Prayer after the publication of his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’. Last autumn, his successor, Pope Leo, issued a series of prayer texts and biblical readings for a votive mass for the Care of Creation.

IN RECENT years, the Church of England has made its own significant steps on this same direction with A Time for Creation, a set of liturgies for occasions when there’s a deal with creation, including Daily Prayer, services of the Word, school assemblies, eucharistic celebrations, and seasonal services.

Last month (July), the House of Bishops published a recent teaching document, Hope for all Creation, offering a theological rationale for creation care based on the concept of our embeddedness and interconnectedness with the earth and all its inhabitants. And in the identical month, the General Synod approved (almost unanimously) a recent annual Festival of Creation in Christ, to be celebrated annually on the primary Sunday in September — the primary recent festival added to the Church calendar since not less than the establishment of Common Worship.

Momentum extends across other Provinces of the Anglican Communion, including Southern Africa, Canada, the United States, and the Scottish Episcopal Church, and in July the Anglican Consultative Council passed a resolution encouraging the adoption of a proper liturgy in member Churches’ calendars.

NOT everyone, nevertheless, is convinced. Canon Angela Tilby, writing within the Church Times (Comment, 16 January), argues first, that a celebration of creation is superimposed on a liturgical cycle that’s otherwise exclusively and rigorously focused on Christ and salvation alone. And, second, such a celebration could also be co-opted and even weaponised by those that need to prescribe our response to the ecological crisis.

These issues have been considered for a while now through the Assisi Process: three international conferences held in Assisi since March 2024, bringing together theologians, liturgists, ecumenists, and environmentalists across the ecumenical spectrum, from the Christian East and West and the worldwide North and South.

In response to the criticisms, it is crucial to emphasize that this recent liturgy doesn’t seek to have fun the physical matter of creation itself, but to supply for worship that’s relentlessly focused on God the Creator. It commemorates God’s act of creation of heaven and earth, of all that’s seen and unseen (Genesis 1, Job 38), and the reality that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24.1). This conviction is a foundational tenet of Christian belief, embedded within the earliest proclamation of the gospel itself (Acts 4.24).

Nor does the brand new liturgy restrict itself only to God’s act of creation “to start with” (Genesis 1.1). Just as Christian theology recognises multiple temporal dimension of God’s creative work — in past, present, and future — so, alongside creatio ex nihilo, this recent festival celebrates creatio continua: the concept that God holds all things in being, moment by moment, by his grace (Acts 17.28, Colossians 1.17, Hebrews 1.3); and creatio nova: that’s, God’s intention to set creation free from its bondage and supreme decay (Romans 8.19-23).

Second, the (ecumenically approved) title of the brand new liturgy is the Festival of Creation in Christ, underlining the extent to which the person and work of Christ is sure up with creation. For Christ, the Logos, is the one “through whom” (John 1.3) and “for whom” all things were made (Colossians 1.16). And it’s in and thru Christ that every one things shall be drawn to their completion and fulfilment (Ephesians 1.10). So, this celebration of creation and recent creation in Christ makes explicit the Christ who is widely known within the round across the Christian yr.

THE recent liturgy also reveals the properly Trinitarian scope of the mystery of creation. Scripture in all places asserts that the three divine individuals act inseparably within the creative work (Genesis 1.2, 2.7, Psalm 33.6, 104.30), as we proclaim once we declare our faith in “the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth”, Christ “through [whom] all things were made”, and the Holy Spirit, “the giver of life”.

It isn’t any accident that the impetus for this recent liturgy coincided with preparations to have fun the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, which so clearly sets the gift of life and creation inside the trinitarian shape of Christian belief.

Like all good theology, subsequently, in its emphasis on the mystery of God’s act of creation and the Holy Trinity as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of all things, this festival cuts across any try to co-opt it for a selected approach to the climate crisis — whether political, social, or economic.

A FURTHER dimension of the brand new festival is its recognition of the fabric order as a sacramental reality that reveals and mediates the presence of its Creator. As Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Creation provides the weather for our sacramental worship within the water and oil for baptism, and the bread and wine for the eucharist, not to say palm branches and flora for adornment, fragrant resins for incense, and beeswax for candles.

Perspectives from the worldwide South and Indigenous traditions have helped to emphasize that the created world is a primary locus during which the mystery of God’s creative love is encountered, calling for a holistic celebration of creation. As creatures embedded in time and space, we enter the mystery of creation through the materiality of the world around us, even when God is transcendent and distinct from it. Attention to what was created doesn’t come on the expense of its Maker (Romans 1.25). Rather, our celebration of the mystery of creation enriches our love for the God who’s its source.

The recent festival provides the words during which we, too, can join our voices with all creation in a single symphony of praise, a celebration of God’s creative motion. And, through the offering of this praise, our wonder on the immensity of the cosmos and the complexity of life on earth shall be reawakened, and our desire to care more responsibly for the earth shall be strengthened, as we recognise that God not only made the world, but additionally delights in it and cares for it. So, allow us to keep the feast!

Canon Christopher Irvine is a consultant to the Liturgical Commission, a member of the Assisi Conference Working Group, and teaches for the Mirfield Liturgical Institute.

The Revd Dr Timothy Howles is associate director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, based at Campion Hall, Oxford, and an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion within the University of Oxford.