SAUCIER — All creation echoing

It’s the Season of Creation!

It doesn’t look like it. The corn fields have turned brown. Leaves, forced into early retirement by drought, ready themselves for change.

And the day calls it quits much earlier.

It’s not very lush and vibrant for a Season of Creation, but the annual call to awareness, prayer and action is a worldwide event.

While we gird ourselves for the advance of winter, our kinfolk in the southern climes open their windows, prepare their fields and once again marvel the colorful blossoms that herald their spring.

The Season of Creation runs from the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on Sept. 1 until Oct. 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, renowned for his intimacy with nature and wildlife communication skills.

It’s nothing new. Nine hundred years ago, St. Hildegaard of Bingen was not only a writer and composer but an herbalist and healer. She believed that the “viriditas” or “greenness” of God’s creation was not just a metaphor but a reality that sustained the world.

Other mystics, like St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux, found in the mountains a revelation of the greatness of God and the wonders of heaven.

St. Gertrude of Nivelles, famous for her love of plants and gardening, cared for animals as well. After refusing an arranged marriage, she entered a convent and became the first cat lady.

Pope St. John Paul II loved to hike, canoe and ski. He was an avid outdoorsman like his saintly predecessor Hubert, who was converted by a deer.

It should be no surprise that the Church produced so many saints with a deep love for creation. It teaches that we are not just stewards of nature, but a part of it and dependent upon it.

Our worship is not simply words and music. We have water, wine, bread, oils, flowers and incense — all fruits of our physical world that keep us grounded in creation through taste, smell and touch.

Creation, like it seasons, is a cycle of life, death and new life. In death we reenter its womb as we return ourselves to the earth.

Paul observed that “all creation is groaning in labor pains... .” Those groans are now wails as rivers die, seas warm, and forests and fauna disappear.

 There’s much to be done, but first we must see creation with the eyes of God.

When this gift was first fashioned, “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.”