Living Gospel Inclusivity and Empowerment Now- https://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/2025/10/rev-dr-bridget-mary-meehan-arcwp-chat.html
https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20250909/primera-obispa-espanola-christina-moreira/16716808.shtml
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| Christina Moreira (center) on the day of her ordination, accompanied by Bishops Bridget Mary Meehan, Christine Mayr Lumetzberger, and Gisela Forster. Next to them is Father Victorino Pérez Prieto, ASSOCIATION OF ROMAN CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS (ARCWP). |
Bing Videos Morning Has Broken (Please play entire song)
Reader 1.
Each and every morning we are WELCOMED into God’s creation. Whether the sun is shining or it’s raining, we open our eyes to the gift from our Creator. We recognize all the miracles we awaken to and enjoy each of them. We breathe, we move, we hear, we smell and taste. We are part of God’s creation. How we live each day is our gift to God. Today, we join with each other to give praise and glory to our God with great gratitude, together in our Free Spirit Community.
Reader 2.
Holy One, evidence of your self-communication in love is all around, everywhere. In the inner depths of my own heart, in the world, in all creatures around me, you live and move and have your being. I am not separate from you, and because of your wondrous love I am not separate from all creation. Help me to live with eyes wide open to your self-communication. Help me to be open to your lavish grace, to receive it without fear and with the conviction that you want nothing more than for me to receive it. In turn, may I be gracious to others, an instrument of your lavish grace to all I meet. Amen.
Reader 3 First Reading:
Peace with Creation
The theme for the Season of Creation 2025 is peace with creation, based on Isaiah 32:14-18. The prophet Isaiah pictured the desolated Creation without peace because of the lack of justice and the broken relationship between people and God. This description of devastated cities and wastelands reveals how human destructive behaviors have a negative impact on the Earth.
However, it ends with our hope: Creation will find peace when justice is restored. There is still hope and the expectation for a peaceful Earth. To hope does not mean to stand still and quiet, but to act, pray, change, and reconcile with Creation and the Creator in unity, repentance and solidarity.
To these encouraging words we say: Amen.
Psalm:
Choose Life by Colleen Fulmer Video by MT Streck (Please play entire song.)
Reader 4 Second Reading
Excerpt taken from “A prayer for our earth” (Laudato Si’)
In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis highlighted the great need for a sense of social responsibility. We are called to examine our lifestyle in light of the challenges of environmental degradation and the effect that this is having upon the lives of peoples in the Global South. ‘If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society’ The question remains – am I as a member of this faith community willing to commit to changing my lifestyle so that others and the earth may benefit? We need to change the way we think and the way we act. ‘O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes. Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction’.
To these inspiring words we say: Amen!
Alleluia:
(126) UR Alleluia Sing First verse only - YouTube(Please play entire song.)
Reader 5 Gospel
John 3:13–17
No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For this is how God loved the world:
He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the
world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
These are inspired words from the Gospel named for John, and the community affirms them by saying, Amen.
Pause
Homily: Maureen
HOMILY
2ND SUNDAY IN SEASON OF CREATION
SEPTEMBER 7, 2025
Today is the second Sunday of Creation Time, the month the church sets aside to remind us of the great gift of Creation and of our responsibility towards it. It can be easy to take Creation/Nature for granted: it’s just there and has always been there and is all around us. But when we think about it we realize that everything we need for life comes from ‘Nature’: energy from the sun, food from the earth, etc.
Not only that! The late Pope Francis wrote a wonderful letter, called Laudato Si’/Praised Be, to the whole church, indeed the whole world, ten years ago. The big message he wanted to get across was that not only are we dependent on ‘Nature’ for life but that we and all other creatures are interdependent. It’s a relationship. We are all created by God who created the world and everything in it out of love; who saw all that was created and called it ‘Good!’ So, just as we depend on other creatures for life, so too does the rest of creation depend on us humans. In fact, the theme for this year’s Season of Creation is Peace with Creation.
Today’s opening prayer reminds us again, that we, too, are part of God’s creation. One with God, one with nature, one with the planet. We have been created in love, for love, to be loved and to love. And with that awareness, we know it brings responsibilities.
The Season of Creation calls upon us as a faith community to reflect on our commitment to the earth and to the peoples with whom we share this earth. Each year the Christian family unites for this worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home.
Unfortunately, we are experiencing more threats to our common home today than we have for a long time. How are we adjusting our behaviors to the challenges posed by these threats. Threats which were identified by Pope Francis in hisencyclical, Laudato Si, written 10 years ago and still as relevant today - pollution and climate change; issues around quality and access to safe drinkable water; loss of biodiversity; decline in the quality of human life including the breakdown of society and global inequality. All these threats pose a challenge to peace.
Pope Francis points out to us in his letter that we are not doing so good a job of it. ‘Human-induced climate change’ is the phrase being used.
The readings in the liturgy today hopefully provide some guidance and direction on how we as people of faith can exercise our commitments. The first reading reminds us that we must have hope, hope in God who will give us the grace to continue even though at times we may falter.
Our psalm song tells us to choose life, choose peace, remembering the powerful love that moves us.
Our Second reading quotes part of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. He asks Can we change our lifestyle? All of us have, I’m sure, changedour lifestyles already in the 10 years since the encyclical was written but perhaps we need reminders of who we are helping by making a concerted effort to help our planet, nature and others. The prayer from the letter that is quoted says . ‘O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes. Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction’.
The gospel of John contains in one sentence the following hope; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only – begotten Son, that those who believe in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” (John 3:16). In believing in God we must commit to the teachings around love of neighbor – both local and global – those with whom we share this planet ‘Our Common Home’ ensuring an appreciation and understanding of what ‘Peace with Creation’ might look like.
As we gather in this sacred space, we are invited to pause and ask ourselves: what does it truly mean to live in peace with creation? It is more than a passive refrain—it is an active, daily choice. To seek peace with creation is to listen deeply to the world around us, to recognize the silent distress of polluted rivers, the quiet loss of habitats, and the cries of those whose lives are most affected by environmental decline.
Our response begins with gratitude—gratitude for the air that fills our lungs, the water that quenches our thirst, and the soil that nourishes our food. From this gratitude springs a sense of responsibility, calling us to be gentle stewards rather than careless consumers. It calls us to reflect on our patterns of consumption, to celebrate the gifts of the earth with humility, and to share these gifts equitably with all people.
In this season, we are reminded that peacemaking with creation is woven into the fabric of justice. To honor creation is to advocate for those whose voices go unheard—the poor, the marginalized, and future generations. We are summoned to bear witness to the interconnectedness of all life and to shape communities where compassion extends beyond human boundaries into the whole web of living things.
Let us, then, allow this time to move our hearts and hands: to restore what has been broken, to cherish what remains, and to nurture seeds of hope for what is yet to come. May the choices we make ripple outward, becoming prayers for peace—prayers not only spoken but enacted, in every act of care, every gesture of kindness, and every commitment to justice for our common home.
Maybe we can look at how these commitments might take shape in our everyday lives. Perhaps it means pausing before each purchase to ask: is this truly necessary, or can I find joy in simplicity? Maybe it is found in the decision to walk or cycle rather than drive, to plant a tree or tend a garden as an act of hope in the future, to conserve water, or to support local efforts to clean up our neighborhoods. We have been recycling for a long time now. Our routines—once shaped by convenience—become sanctuaries for intention, where small sacrifices blossom into meaningful acts of reverence.
We are called to open our eyes not only to the grandeur of mountains and the vastness of oceans, but also to the silent resilience of wildflowers that push through cracks in city sidewalks, and the song heard at dawn by Brother Bird, as St. Francis called them. In learning to cherish these quiet miracles, our hearts are softened, and we become awake to the presence of the sacred in all creation.
We desire to be bold in our advocacy, lending our voices to movements that demand cleaner air, safer water, and equitable access to the gifts of the earth. Let us teach those around us—the young and the old—that peace with creation is not a distant dream but a daily vocation. And let us pray, not only with words but with the witness of our lives, that our stewardship will be a blessing to the world as it was intended to be: a tapestry of justice, hope, and abiding peace, woven strand by strand by generous hands.
May each of us depart today with a renewed sense of purpose, mindful that the care we extend to the earth is inseparable from the love we offer one another. In walking gently upon this planet, we prepare the ground for generations yet unborn, ensuring that our common home endures as a place of beauty, abundance, and peace—for all creatures, now and always.
REFLECTION QUESTION:
What does Peace with Creation mean to you personally?
Shared Pause
Question for shared reflection:
Reader 6 Prayers of the Community
As we prepare for the sacred meal, we share our hearts’ longings for your healing power.
(Please write your prayers in the chat box.)
(126) "Gift of Peace" from Marina Raye - YouTube
(Reader 6 reads prayers)
Knowing that you are hearing better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God.
Eucharistic Liturgy
Reader 7 Prayer of Jesus
Creator of the Cosmos, Source of Life, Divine Mystery,
You are in nature, all around, you are within me, in my cup of wine and loaf of bread.
Blessed be your names:
Allah, Beloved, Great Spirit, Radiant One, Yahweh, HaShem, Sophia
Your presence has come, your will is done on earth as it is in the cosmos.
May we give each other strength, mercy, tenderness, and joy, and forgive each other’s failures, silence, pettiness, and forgetfulness, as we ask to be forgiven by those we’ve hurt.
Lead us home to ourselves and each other, to clarity, to oneness, and deliver us from the darkness of our ignorance and fear.
So we pray and so we receive. Amen.
Adapted from There Are Burning Bushes Everywhere by Jan Phillips
Reader 8: Eucharistic Prayer
Throughout all ages, as mountains dance and trees applaud, the cries of birth are also loud for all to hear and tend.
Your Sabbath and Jubilee made space for all Creation’s refreshment. But we made exceptions.
Your People sought milk and honey, yet injustice laid lands waste. Your prophets: priests and farmers call us to account.
Yet your loving signs of warning fall often by the wayside. And greed and pride inspire harmful choices knowingly embraced.
Yet still comes Christ Jesus, friend of wildlife, beloved of the poor scolding the seas teaching with trees, and God’s wildness in Wind,
With Christ we shoulder the cross of healing; we shudder at the disaster of truth denied by power,
And yet... Risen and present through food and faith Christ calls us afresh to care for a damaged world.
Reader 9: Blessing of Bread & Wine
God, Sustainer, gifting life with the good things of the Earth:
food and drink we offer;
flesh and blood we are.
As Jesus did, so do we: We break this bread.(bread is broken)
We share this wine. (cup is raised)
We trust that Christ who died is Christ who rose and Christ who comes again.
We eat the body and blood of Jesus with the words, “I am a co-creator.”
Communion Meditation:
Could It Be? (Start slow fade at 2:20)
Reader 10: Closing Prayer:
Great Spirit, great mystery, we are here today, now
to pray for the earth, that we may live in peace and in deep love
and regard for our earth, that gives us life each day.
Sweet mother, we give thanks and praise for the love,
the nurturing and the support that you give your children.
May all the sisters and brothers of the earth join together
and heal their lives and heal their hearts,
and know that their divine purpose on the earth
is to live with one another in peace and in harmony with their beautiful earth.
AMEN
(Excerpt from Navajo (Diné) prayer)
Sending Forth Song:
