Liturgies

Brief interfaith global warming liturgy (PDF)

"A Liturgy of Repentance in a World with Changing Climate" (PDF)

Each year the National Council of Churches produces Earth Day resources, including liturgies. The excellent 2008 resources explores the interconnectedness of poverty and climate change - go to the Climate and Poverty Earth Day Sunday Resource.

“Web of Creation,” liturgies, readings, etc.

Earth Ministry, compilation of litanies and prayers

Ideas for services highlighting environmental themes

Contemporary readings, litanies, and confessions prepared by the Committee on Spirituality and the Environment of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine

Evangelical Environmental Network’s worship resources

PRAYERS

A Prayer for the Mountains
Giver of all good and source of life,
We give you thanks for the blessings of creation
For the delicate balance that sustains us
For the beauty that stirs our hearts
For the intricacy that makes us wonder
And for the majesty that fills us with reverence and awe.

We give you thanks for the stories of faith which draw our attention to holy places and holy people.
And we give you thanks for mountains
For the mountains where you encounter and challenge your people
For the mountains where we find you in stillness and calm
For the mountains where your glory shines forth.

Help us to become a part of your story, your plan for the renewal of creation.
Call us back to the mountains.
Help us turn from greed and carelessness.
Call us back to the mountains.
Turn our hopes, our energies and our aspirations in service of all of creation.
Call us back to the mountains
Give us wisdom to speak the truths that must be told and the humility to listen for what we might yet learn.
Call us back to the mountains
Not for ease, not for profit, not for plunder.
Call us back to the mountains
So that with perspective and clarity we may envision and enact a future in which that holy balance of sustenance, justice and peace may be our common goal and our common good. Amen.

Written by The Rev. Margaret Ann Faeth, Ph.D.
Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill, Alexandria, Virginia
April 2008

For the Beauty of the Earth
We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the beauty of earth and sky and sea; for the richness of mountains, plains, and rivers; for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers. We praise you for these good gifts, and pray that we may safeguard them for our posterity. Grant that we may continue to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation, to the honor and glory of your Name, now and for ever. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer 1979 (Episcopal Church), p. 840

A Song of Creation
I. The Cosmic Order
Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, *
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.
Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, *
all winds and fire and heat.
Winter and summer, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold, *
drops of dew and flakes of snow.
Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O nights and days, *
O shining light and enfolding dark.
Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

II. The Earth and its Creatures
Let the earth glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O mountains and hills,
and all that grows upon the earth, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O springs of water, seas, and streams, *
O whales and all that move in the waters.
All birds of the air, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O beasts of the wild, *
and all you flocks and herds.
O men and women everywhere, glorify the Lord, *
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Book of Common Prayer 1979 (Episcopal Church), p. 88-9

Some Questions You Might Ask
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn't?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

"Some Questions You Might Ask," by Mary Oliver

Job 37:14-24
[God speaking] “Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God's wonders. Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge? You who swelter in your clothes when the land lies hushed under the south wind, can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze? Tell us what we should say to him; we cannot draw up our case because of our darkness. Should he be told that I want to speak? Would anyone ask to be swallowed up? Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean. Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty. The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. Therefore, people revere him, for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?”

Job 37:14-24 (NIV)

Luke 12:22-34
Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
“Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Luke 12:22-34 (NIV)

Amos 5:8
Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep
darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night;
who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon
the surface of the earth: The Lord is his name.

Amos 5:8 (World English Bible)

Psalm 74:15, 16
Yours is the day, O God, yours also the night; you established
the moon and the sun. You fixed all the boundaries of the
earth; you made both summer and winter.

Psalm 74:15, 16 (NIV)

Genesis 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:15 (NIV)

"Confession" from The Iona Community Worship Book
God, your fertile earth is slowly being stripped of its riches
Open your eyes to see.

God, your clear air is slowly being filled with pollutants
Open your eyes to see.

God, your creatures are slowly dying and your people are suffering,
Open your eyes to see.

God our Maker, so move us by the wonder of creation
That we repent and care more deeply.

So move us to grieve the loss of life
That we learn to cherish and protect the world.

From "The Brothers Karamazov"
Love all God´s creation, the
whole of it and every grain of sand.
Love every leaf, every ray of God's light!
Love the animals, love the
plants, love everything. lf
you love everything, you will
perceive the divine mystery
in things. And once you have
perceived it you will begin
to comprehend it ceaselessly,
more and more every day.
And you will at last come to
love the whole world with
an abiding universal love.
Love the animals: God has
given them the rudiments of
thought and untroubled joy.
Do not therefore, trouble it,
do not torture them, do not
deprive them of their joy, do
not go against God´s intent.

Starets Zosima in "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor M. Dostojevsky

The Canticle of the Creatures
Good Lord, most high almighty,
to you all praise is due,
all glory, honour, blessing,
belong alone to you;
there is no man whose lips
are fit to frame your name.

Be praised then, my Lord God,
in and through all your creatures
especially among them,
through noble Brother Sun,
by whom you light the day;
in his radiant splendid beauty
he reminds us, Lord, of you.

Be praised, my Lord. Through Sister Moon and all the stars;
and have made the sky shine in their lovely light.

In Brother Wind be praised, my Lord,
and in the air,
in clouds, in calm,
in all the weather moods that cherish life.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Water;
she is most useful, humble, precious, pure.
And Brother Fire, by whom you lighten night;
how fine is he, how happy, powerful, strong.

Through our dear Mother Earth be praised, my Lord,
she feeds us, guides us, gives us plants, bright flowers
and all her fruits.

Be praised, my Lord, through us,
when out of love for you
we pardon one another.
When we endure
in sickness and in sorrow.
Blessed are they who preserve in peace;
from you, Most High, they will receive their prize.

Be praised, my Lord, praised for our Sister Death
from whom no man alive can hope to hide;
wretched are they who die deep in their sin.
And blessed those, Death finds doing your will.
For them there is no further death to fear.

O people! Praise God and bless him,
give him thanks
and serve him most humbly.

The Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis of Assisi, translation by Molly Reidy

Prayer by St. Leontios of Cyprus
Through heaven and earth and the sea,
through wood and stone,
through all creation visible and invisible,
I offer generation to the Creator and Master
and Maker directly and by itself,
but it is through me that the heavens declare the glory of God,
through me the moon worships God,
through me the stars glorify him,
through me the waters and the showers rain,
the dews and all the creation,
venerate God and give him glory.

St. Leontios of Cyprus

Psalm 19:1-7
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.

Psalm 19:1-7 (NIV)

Isaiah 11:6-9
The wolf lives with the lamb,
the panther lies down with the kid,
calf and lion cub feed together
with a little boy to lead them.
The cow and the bear make friends,
their young lie down together.
The lion eats straw like the ox.
The infant plays over the cobra's hole;
into the viper's lair
the young child puts his hand.
They do not hurt, or harm,
on all my holy mountain,
for the country is filled with the knowledge of God
as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9 (NIV)

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