While the season of Lent is often thought of as a wilderness period in the church calendar, a myriad of creation themes abound throughout the six weeks. From the garden with our ancestors Adam and Eve, to the Easter Vigil and baptismal font, Lent can be a time of quieting our souls to become awake to the elements of creation surrounding us in word and sacrament and planetary systems.
As you prepare for worship in Lent consider the following approaches to engage with creation:
- Follow a particular theme throughout the season–for example, water–and look for ways to highlight the theme in hymnody, prayer, and preaching.
- Incorporate the names of local native species, bodies of water, and/or species that have gone extinct into the Prayers of the People each week.
- Each week highlight a specific element from creation found in the lessons as a guiding motif (e.g. garden, water, air, stone/rock, soil, bone/carbon, palms or vegetation).
In addition to existing liturgies, rites and prayers for Episcopal Churches found on episcopalcommonprayer.org, there is also a resource made by the SCLM initially in a report to the 78th General Convention (2015), Liturgical Materials for Honoring God in Creation. The Confession of Sin against God’s Creation (p 246) and Litany for the Planet (p 248) are especially conducive to the penitential season of Lent.
Let our prayers and liturgies deepen our sense of interconnectedness with the whole community of creation during this time overlapping social and planetary apocalypses.