Words of Light and Hope from Helena Crockford LLM

Words of Light and Hope – 31st August 2025 Helena Crockford LLM

From tomorrow to 4th October, we enter the ecumenical Season of Creation,
a time dedicated to God as the creator and sustainer of all life. This year’s
theme is ‘Peace with Creation’ and we are invited to pray, act and use our
voices to advocate for creation.
Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great
book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below
you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with
ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you
ask for a louder voice than that?’ St. Augustine (354-430), De Civit. Dei,
Book XVI
We are all musicians in a great human orchestra, and it is now time to play
the Save the World Symphony. You are not required to play a solo, but you
are required to know what instrument you hold, and play it as well as you
can. You are required to find your place in the score. What we love we must
protect. That is what love means. From the right to know and the duty to
inquire flows the obligation to act.’ Sandra Steingraber (b.1959), biologist,
author, and environmental activist.
We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we
fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion. Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze
at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to
humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind.
We are to work with it. For without it we cannot survive.’ Hildegard of
Bingen (1098-1179)
Creator of all,
we praise you for the gift of life
and for the faith that unites us in care for our common home.
We confess how estranged we have become —
from one another, from your Creation,
and from our truest selves.
We acknowledge that our greed and destructive impulses
have fractured our relationships with you,
with others, and with the Earth.
Fertile fields have become barren, forests lie desolate,
oceans and rivers are polluted
Thriving communities have become places of suffering,
and the earth cries out.
May we come together as one family,
to labour for your peace —
a shalom where all your people may dwell in safety,
and rest in quiet places Amen.