What Is the Season of Creation?
The Season of Creation is an annual Christian observance from September 1 through October 4 that invites us to pray, give thanks for God’s creation, and renew our responsibility for our common home.
For Catholics, September 1 is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, established by Pope Francis in 2015. The wider Season of Creation is an ecumenical initiative that concludes on October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
It’s easy to hear “Season of Creation” and think this is mainly about environmental responsibility.
It is about our responsibility toward creation—but for Catholics, there is something deeper underneath it.
Before creation is something to protect, it is something to receive.
It is a gift.
And a gift tells us something about the Giver.
Is the Season of Creation Catholic?
Yes, with an important distinction.
The Catholic Church officially joined the annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in 2015, when Pope Francis established September 1 as its observance. The wider Season of Creation is ecumenical, bringing Christians of different traditions together in prayer and action for creation.
It ends on October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
St. Francis had a remarkable ability to see creation as something that could lead him into praise of its Creator. His Canticle of the Creatures doesn’t treat nature as God. It praises God through what He has made.
And that’s an important distinction for Catholics.
Creation isn’t God. Creation reveals something of God and points us back toward Him.
What Does Creation Have to Do With Transcendental Types?
Imagine four people standing in they same place on a beautiful fall morning.
One begins asking questions.
What kind of tree is that? Why are the leaves changing? How does this ecosystem work?
Another notices what needs attention.
That garden needs water. Someone should clean up this trail. Look at how much life this soil is producing.
Another simply stops.
The light through the trees, the colors, the silence. Something about the scene moves them deeply.
And abother immediately thinks:
I wish someone I love were here to see this with me.
Same world. Same creation. Different ways of seeing it.
That’s one way to begin understanding the Transcendental Types.
We naturally encounter Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Unity in different ways. These aren’t four goals competing with one another, and they aren’t simply personality preferences. Your type is not a label that confines you, nor does it mean you possess one transcendental and not the others.
What Are the Transcendental Types?
All four belong together.
Your Transcendental Type helps identify a particular doorway through which you may be especially disposed to encounter God, understand yourself, relate to others, and live your vocation.
Creation gives us a surprisingly simple place to notice that doorway.
The Truth Type may notice intelligibility.
Creation has order. It can be studied, named, understood, and contemplated. The Truth-oriented person may find themselves asking why something is the way it is and what it reveals about reality.
Their instinct is to understand.
The Goodness Type may notice what creation gives and what it needs.
Things grow, flourish, and sometimes need care. The Goodness-oriented person may be especially attentive to the gifts of creation and our responsibility to care for what God has entrusted to us.
Their instinct moves toward action.
The Beauty Type may notice meaning and wonder.
A mountain, night sky, or first sign of spring can move us before we have words for what we’re experiencing. The Beauty-oriented person may readily perceive visible creation as directing the heart beyond itself toward its Creator.
Their instinct is to behold.
The Unity Type may notice relationship.
Sometimes our first response to something wonderful is simply:
I want to share this with someone.
The Unity-oriented person may naturally notice communion, belonging, and relationship.
Their instinct is toward connection.
Truth. Goodness. Beauty. Unity.
Four different first movements. One created world. And one God from whom it all comes.
Why Does the Church Ask Us to Care for Creation?
Because creation is a gift entrusted to us, not a possession over which we have absolute dominion.
Catholic care for creation begins with God the Creator and the place He has given the human person within creation.
In establishing the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis described stewardship of God’s handiwork as part of the Christian life, connecting care for creation with our encounter with Jesus Christ.
That means Catholic environmental stewardship cannot be separated from Catholic teaching about the human person.
We care about the natural world and the people who inhabit it.
We care about water and food and the families who need them.
We care about land and the poor whose livelihoods depend upon it.
We care about future generations because creation has been entrusted to us rather than given to us for unrestricted consumption.
This is why Catholic care for creation is bigger than:
“Be nicer to the planet.”
It begins with something more fundamental:
Everything is gift.
We receive our lives, our bodies, other people, and the earth itself from God.
And what we receive from God, we are called to receive with gratitude and steward with love.
How Can You Observe the Season of Creation?
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Go outside. Enjoy a walk or hike with a friend.
Bring someone with you. Let creation become an occasion for relationship rather than another experience to consume alone.
Care for something. Tend a garden, clean up a trail, reduce unnecessary waste, or simply take better care of the place God has actually entrusted to you.
Read Scripture outside. Begin with Genesis 1–2, Psalm 8, Psalm 19, Psalm 104, Matthew 6:25–34, Romans 8:18–25, or Colossians 1:15–20.
Read Laudato Si’. Pope Francis’ encyclical places care for our common home within a larger Christian vision of God, humanity, creation, responsibility, and worship.
Go to Mass. Notice how created things: water, bread, wine, oil, fire, incense, human voices and human bodies – are taken up into Catholic worship.
The Catholic imagination does not require us to escape the material world to find God.
God Himself entered it.
What Does Your Transcendental Type Notice in Creation?
Ask yourself:
Do you find yourself wanting to understand?
Do you immediately notice something that could be cultivated, protected, repaired, or improved?
Are you drawn into wonder, symbolism, and meaning?
Or does the experience make you think about relationship, belonging, and sharing it with someone else?
Those movements don’t prove your Transcendental Type, but they may reveal something about the way you naturally pay attention.
And attention matters.
Because one of the great dangers of ordinary life isn’t simply that we reject God’s gifts.
It’s that we stop noticing them.
But the Transcendental Types aren’t ultimately about what we notice.
They are about who our attention leads us toward.
Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Unity are not four destinations. They lead us beyond ourselves to the One in whom they find their fullness.
So perhaps the Season of Creation can begin with a simple prayer:
Lord, what have You placed in front of me that I’ve stopped seeing?
Look again.
What you notice in creation may become an invitation to notice the Creator
Keep exploring
What Are the Transcendental Types? →
A simple introduction to the four ways we naturally encounter Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Unity.
Discover Your Transcendental Type →
What do you naturally notice first?