Prayers for Creation 

Friday 10th June 2022

Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and not we are ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100:3

You Lord, are the source of all good things: 

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation: 

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives: 

May we live together in peace.

A reading: In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15-17

We do not presume to walk on this earth,

O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much
as to gather up the leftover grains 

nor glean the fruits fallen from your trees –
But you are the same Lord,
whose property is always to have mercy:
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to live where you plant us, 

that we may work in harmony with nature 

and  share your rich harvest with all. 

Amen 

Thank you God for trees and fruit, herbs and grasses

Forgive us when through greed and thoughtlessness, 

we have cut down forests and burnt the scrub, 

when we have prioritised monoculture and marginalised diversity, 

when we have drained rivers and aquifers 

favouring cash crops over native plants. 

Remake our hearts and minds

and so restore our way of living.

Thank you God for birds of the air, 

the creatures of the land and the fish of the sea.

Forgive us when through greed and thoughtlessness, 

we have promoted our own livestock and made refugees of  the native wildlife, 

when we enlarged  our own living space and made other creatures homeless.

Remake our hearts and minds

and so restore our way of living.

Thank you God for soil and water and the fresh air we breathe. 

Forgive us when through greed and thoughtlessness 

we take from the soil but do not give back, 

when we pollute the waters with waste we do not want, 

when we fill the air with an excess of greenhouse gases.

Remake our hearts and minds

and so restore our way of living.

Thank you God for our brothers and sisters, our kith and kin

Forgive us when through greed and thoughtlessness 

we rob them of their livelihoods, 

when we divert their wealth into our pockets, 

when we ignore their pleas for help.

Remake our hearts and minds

and so restore our way of living.

Lord God, as you made us in your image, that we might live with you

and as your Son took on our form that he might live among us, 

Remake our hearts and minds

and so restore our way of living.

Amen.