Eco-Congregations

One of the stated aims in 2010’s Mission and Ministry Five year plan was to become an eco-diocese. That process is facilitated within the Mission and Ministry Committee by investigating how the diocese as a whole can contribute to the ecumenical eco-congregations movement.

Immediate plans for this year are centring around producing an ecological Eucharistic liturgy for Creationtide (which runs from the first week of September to the second week of October), and by putting together appropriate non-Eucharistic worship resources – making them known via Bishops’ notices and via the St John’s Princes Street website Earth be Glad.

Currently over half of the congregations in Edinburgh are engaging with the eco-congregations material.

Reflection

A prayer by St Hildegard of Bingen:

The soul is like a wind that waves over herbs,
Is like the dew that moistens the grass
Is like the rain-soaked air that lets things grow.
In the same way you should radiate kindness
To all who are filled with longing.
Be a wind, helping those in need.
Be a dew, consoling the abandoned.
Be the rain-soaked air, giving heart to the weary.
Filling their hunger with life.

Let us dedicate our days to vividness,
the energy of love singing through creation.
May our eyes awaken to the beauty of all life.
May our ears hear the harmony of nature.
May our minds be enlightened.
May our hearts soften knowing we are held in Love’s embrace.
May our voices speak boldly of our unity.
For we are feathers on the breath of God.