Season of Creation-Week 3

Written on: September 13, 2017

As we live into the Season of Creation, we celebrate one of our congregational feasts, the Exaltation of the Cross on Thursday, September 14^th; the next day, September 15 we commemorate the Sorrows of our mother, Mary.

This has indeed been a week of the Cross and of Sorrow, as we remember sadly the tragic loss of life on 9/11/2001.

Now, in 2017, we in the USA have been visited by extreme weather events:

• Hurricane Harvey and resulting surges and flooding have devastated people and properties in Texas and Louisiana,
• Hurricane Irma ripped up the Florida Peninsula causing mass evacuations, people fleeing to safer places if they could find them and had enough gas to get there, disruption of the transportation system and loss of electrical power

And in North America:

• Earthquake in Mexico resulting in 90 deaths
• Raging wild fires in western US and Canada.

Let us pray for all who have been affected by these extreme events and for our Earth.

In the midst of our feelings of powerlessness in the face of these tragedies, we offer the following:

• September 14^th , Exultation of the Cross:
  

  Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

  • Visualize the Cross stretched across our Earth, the suffering of the people and planet
  • Sit with God in contemplative prayer, holding the Earth in our arms and pray for healing to flow out to our wounded planet

• September 15^th, Mother of Sorrows
  • “Mary, the Mother who cared for Jesus, now cares with maternal affection and pain for this wounded world. Just as her pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power.  …She is the Mother and Queen of all creation.  Hence, we can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom.  Laudato Si   #241.
  • Pray the Litany Prayer to Our Lady p.28 Heritage Prayer book
  • Pray the Rosary

We hope these suggestions will help us to continue celebrating in the Season of Creation.

Peace,

Earth Committee

This entry was posted in From our Sisters and tagged: earthquake, Exultation of the Cross, Florida, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Louisiana, Mexico, Mother of Sorrows, Rosary, Season of Creation, Texas, wild fires