Catholic Identity
Season of Creation – September
Each year from 1 September to 4 October, the Catholic Church around the world celebrates the Season of Creation – a time set aside to reflect on God’s gift of creation and to commit ourselves to caring for our common home. This season invites us to pray, learn, and act together for the environment, inspired by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’.
Families are encouraged to join in this season at home. Some simple ways include:
- Taking a walk together and noticing the beauty of nature.
- Planting something in the garden or caring for a pot plant.
- Praying as a family in gratitude for creation.
- Making small choices to care for the earth, such as reducing waste, saving water, or turning off lights.
Together, as a school and community, we can use this Season of Creation to deepen our awareness of God’s presence in creation and take steps towards a more sustainable future.
Reflections from Fr Stephen
Christ Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself… (Phil 2:6-11)
We cannot imagine the humility of Jesus. Jesus is God the Son. We name him every time we make the sign of the Cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He was fully God, equal with the Father and all-powerful, but he chose to become a human being. He experienced every part of our life that makes us human, learning and growing and working and suffering like us. But he was humbler yet. He allowed himself to be imprisoned, mocked, tortured and executed like a criminal. He was so humbled that even many of his closest disciples who had seen him heal the sick, calm storms with a word and raise the dead, gave up on him and fled. In that moment, they could not accept that God could be present in such an awful situation.
Yet God was there. Jesus rose from the dead and now he reigns in heaven. In his desperation to share his life with God us, God lowered himself and endured the worst consequences of our sin so he could free us from sin.
That humility continues in the Mass, in the Eucharist. Every time we go to Mass, Jesus is there, in the most meek and humble way possible. He looks like a small white piece of bread, but it is really him, in all his power and glory and, most importantly, all of his love. Just as God was really there on the cross. God’s own humility teaches us to be humble, to see our own possessions and talents as gifts that are meant to be put at the service of others, not to glorify ourselves. We can only hope to imitate the humility of Jesus with his help. He lowered himself in order to raise us up with him. Let us not scorn or take for granted his extraordinary love and humility revealed on the Cross and offered to us in the Mass.
God Bless,
