Bishop's Message: Season for the Care of Creation
My dear people,
May the peace of Christ be with you all.
As we move from the long, dry summer into autumn the Church marks the Season for the Care of Creation, beginning on 1st September and concluding on 4th October. The 4th October holds a double significance for us; it is the anniversary of Lancaster Cathedral’s Dedication, and it also marks the Feast Day for Saint Francis of Assisi, this year being the 800th anniversary of his death.
I commend to you the Pastoral Message issued by our Holy Father, Pope Leo XlV, specifically for this Season of Grace. I commend it to your attention for this short period of time, inviting you to take particular note of Pope Leo’s invitation for each of us to pray for a renewal of the heart. Without such renewal we are inclined to take for granted the Lord’s self-Revelation in His work of creation. His gift of nature will be belittled or misused or misunderstood. We will blame others for the state of the world, whilst awarding ourselves license to do nothing. Without such renewal we are inclined to lose sight of His gift of re-Creation through the saving Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord, and then lose our belief in our eternal destiny.
Pope Leo has, with a true shepherd’s heart shown us a way of conversion and growth which is open to each of us. He emphasizes the need for our action now. With humility may your each be moved to respond in a spirit of grateful hope. This first September weekend I shall be travelling to London to take part in the March For Life, an event I have attended often since I became your Bishop. This annual event highlights how great the threat to creation is, especially given the stark evidence showing how our secular culture seems committed to self-destruction. I ask your perseverance in prayer in defence of God’s gift of creation, and particularly in defence of the gift we each carry, made as we are, in His own image and likeness. Let us remember those most at risk.
With every blessing,
✠ Rt Rev Paul Swarbrick
Bishop of Lancaster
