PRAYERS FOR THE SEASON OF CREATION
04/09/2024
Lough Neagh... environmentally damaged...
Churches are currently observing a Season of Creation and so to launch it I asked David and Sheila McNeill to pray us into it. This is their beautiful script.
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the gift of your wonderful creation.
Thank you for flowers which appear in spring and summer, filling the countryside with colour and beauty. For primroses and violets, meadowsweet and honeysuckle, water lilies and ragged robin.
Thank you for our recent Fitzroy trip to Rathlin Island, where we enjoyed sunshine, fellowship and the beautiful landscape decorated with purple heather alongside golden gorse.
Thank you for the huge diversity of fauna we see around us - for all animal life, feeding, breeding and living in the land, sea and sky. Thank you for squirrels and foxes, kingfishers and ravens, lizards and tadpoles.
For mini-beasts which fascinate us with their stunning detail - for the wings of a butterfly, the spots on a ladybird, the stripes on a bee and the dazzling dance of a dragonfly.
Thank you for habitats, which enable each creature and plant to thrive - for water, soil, sand and rocks, for temperature, humidity and aspect – each contributing to create environmental niches suited to sustain a wonderfully rich biodiversity.
Thank you for our unique Irish habitats, for fields, meadows, boglands, our coastline, dunes, waterways, mountains, valleys and precious woodlands.
Thank you for our hedgerows which border fields and roads, for blackthorn, hawthorn, rose, holly, spindle and crab apple, creating green corridors across the countryside for birds and animals to live and travel safely.
Thank you for our waterways, teeming with life in and on the water, and for the banks clothed with plants and trees. We are saddened to see Lough Neagh and our river highways marred by the growth of blue-green algae. And we pray for wisdom for those seeking to restore these jewels of our environment.
We pray for the farming community, the stewards of our countryside. We pray that they would have sustainable livelihoods where the harvesting and restoring of the earth’s resources is balanced, and fragile habitats are protected for wildlife.
We pray for the fishing community, tasked with dipping into your oceans for food. We pray for the responsible control of fishing methods and for fishing rights to provide food and maintain the beauty and balance of sea life.
We pray for those with political responsibility to protect and maintain our environment. Help Andrew Muir, our environment minister, in consultation with farming and wildlife experts, to make wise decisions and to implement the necessary changes.
Finally, Lord, we pray for ourselves. Help us to live gratefully and tread lightly in your majestic, yet fragile, world.
Amen.