The Tent: A Meeting Place for All
Season of Creation
Every year during the Season of Creation, Christians on six continents unite to pray, act, and advocate for our common home. This year’s theme is “A home for all? Renewing the Oikos of God.” The logo, Abraham’s tent, reflects the theme and symbolizes “a home for all.” This season runs annually from September 1 through October 4, uniting the global Christian family around one shared purpose.
2021 Symbol
Abraham and Sarah opened their tent as a home for three strangers, who turned out to be God’s angels (Genesis 18). By creating a home for all, their act of radical hospitality became a source of great blessing. Abraham’s tent is a symbol of our call to practice creation care as an act of hospitality, safeguarding a place for humans and all creatures in our common home, the household (oikos) of God. It is a place of shelter or refuge. It can link us with the homeless, refugees, and all who are on the move and displaced by the effects of climate change. The tent is a sign of the simplicity of the grateful pilgrim who knows that as we pass through this life, our footprint must be light upon the Earth.
History
September 1 was proclaimed as a day of prayer for creation for the Eastern Orthodox Church by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989. It was embraced by other major Christian European churches in 2001, and by Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church in 2015.
In recent years, many Christian churches have begun celebrating the “Season of Creation” between September 1 and October 4, the Feast of St. Francis. St. Francis is the author of the Canticle of the Creatures, and the Catholic saint who promotes ecology.
