The Franciscan Friars of the Atonement said they will join “area clergy, congregants and people of faith in gathering along the Hudson River” Tuesday, Sept. 1, at Riverfront Green Park in Peekskill to inaugurate the 2026 Season of Creation.

The season is an annual period of prayer and contemplation focused on care for the environment and mankind’s “common home.” Tuesday’s 30-minute gathering will start at 5 p.m.

“Creation Care is right here and right now,” Fr. Jim Gardiner, SA, former director of the Graymoor Spiritual Life Center in Garrison, told The Good Newsroom by phone on Wednesday, Aug. 26. He said “creation is God’s handiwork,” and His children should be “cooperators in that work.”

“This is a new ecumenical opportunity for people of faith to get together; this is the first time we’re doing this. We’re going to use the prayer service (guideline) that was provided by the World Council of Churches, and two hymns. The opening hymn will be ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ Thank God the Hudson River is flowing full these days…We’ll have to sing between the toots of Amtrak and Metro North. But that’s OK – that’s the real world,” Fr. Gardiner added.

Riverfront Green Park is located at 50 Hudson Ave., Peekskill (Westchester County), across from the Peekskill Train Station.

Shared responsibility

Organizers said this year’s theme, “Living Waters,” drawn from Ezekiel, Chapter 47, verses 9 and 12, offers a biblical vision of hope and ecological restoration. The theme invites people of faith to consider the life-giving power of water and “our shared responsibility to protect the natural world that sustains us.”

The Peekskill gathering, organizers said, will bring together participants from several faith and cultural traditions. Prayers and meditations will be offered from Native American, Jewish, Buddhist, and Christian traditions, creating an opportunity for the community to come together in prayer, gratitude, and solidarity for the care of creation.

The Season of Creation was originally established in 1989 by the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Archbishop of Constantinople of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as a day of prayer for creation. Pope Francis officially endorsed the World Day of Prayer (Sept. 1) for the Care of Creation in 2015, and he later embraced and encouraged the full, month-long Season of Creation observance globally in 2019.

“The observance was expanded by Pope Francis to extend from Sept. 1 through the Feast of St. Francis on Oct. 4 and has been endorsed by the World Council of Churches,” the Franciscan Friars said in a statement.