Season of Creation 2026: A Call to Become “Living Water”

Christians worldwide observe the Season of Creation 2026, which runs from the World Day of Prayer for Creation on September 1 to the Feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4. During this annual observance, Christians around the world unite in prayer, action and voice for our common home. We are called to listen intently to the increasingly loud cry of the earth and cry of the poor for whom we bear responsibility as stewards of God.

This year's theme, "Living Water," draws on a vision from the Book of Ezekiel 47:9 and 12, in which the prophet was grieving the destruction of Jerusalem and Temple of Solomon, and the exile of the people of Israel. But as they arrive on the rivers of Babylon, he describes a river flowing from the sanctuary that brings life to barren land: " Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. " (Ezekiel 47:9).

There is a direct parallel between the theme and present day. Communities across the Global South and in war-affected regions face overlapping social, political and environmental collapse, mirroring the devastation faced by Ezekiel's exiled people. The numbers tell the story. The ASEAN Disaster Information Network recorded 1,714 disasters across the region in 2025 — up from just 40 in 2015. In 2026, floods, typhoons, heatwaves and wildfires have continued to break records. Meanwhile, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists more than 48,600 species as threatened with extinction, and scientists warn of the tipping point for widespread, permanent coral reef die-offs. Global warming has already reached approximately 1.44 °C, with the 1.5°C threshold expected to be crossed within a few years. As with most ecological crises, it is the poor and marginalised who bear the highest cost.

Creation as foundation of life

Rivers stabilise ecosystems and sustain settlements. Just as the Tigris and Euphrates were the rivers said to have watered the Garden of Eden, major civilisations have sprouted around great rivers — the Mekong, Ganges, Yangtze, Nile, Amazon, Mississippi, Congo and Niger. Yet modern society has lost this sense of awareness of humanity’s dependence on the Creator’s gifts through creation and have systematically treated Creation as resources to be privatised, manipulated and exploited, rather than as a shared foundation of life.

For instance, industries have wastefully over-exploited water resources to the extent of ‘Global Water Bankruptcy’. About 70% of the world's freshwater is used for agriculture — largely to grow wheat, corn, rice, cotton and sugar cane — with rivers frequently polluted by fertiliser and pesticide runoff. Yet an estimated 30–40% of food produced globally goes to waste. The fashion industry, meanwhile, consumes roughly 79 billion cubic metres of freshwater annually; producing a single T-shirt requires about 2,700 litres of water, and most textiles are overproduced and discarded. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of the world's major rivers have been affected by more than 60,000 large dams, with more planned — including over 50 proposed along the Mekong River and its tributaries. This has cascading consequences for biodiversity and local livelihoods.

Without a healthy ecology, all creation withers, and the human toll is severe: globally, roughly 1,000 children under the age of five die every day from causes linked to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene. As Laudato Si’ has reaffirmed, a healthy environment and safe drinking water is an essential and inalienable human right, and environmental degradation is an injustice against people and an ecological sin.

A Call to Renewal

Yet, divine grace continues to flow into the most dead and hopeless of places and renews hope and sustenance. Season of Creation 2026 also draws on a later verse, Ezekiel 47:12, “On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

From this passage, we see that the river of life represents renewal that extends beyond the healing of creation and includes human salvation. In other words, when we actively care for our common home, Sister Water and Sister Mother Earth care for us too. And care not just in the form of physical sustenance, but ‘for healing’, which suggests holistic flourishing.  

Water carries deep symbolic weight in Christian tradition, marking rites such as baptism and blessing, and mixed with wine in the Eucharistic celebration. The symbolism of living water hence informs us how we should relate to Creation - to care for creation and allow Creation to nourish us.

An Invitation to Reflect

Season of Creation is an invitation for individuals to examine their own relationship with Creation. To consider creation as a finite gift, and to heal our common home by identifying concrete commitments toward learning, sharing, reforming practices, and advocacy.

As disaster records continue to be broken and biodiversity loss accelerates, the call to be ‘Living Water’ positions care for creation not as a peripheral concern but as central to questions of justice, faith and integral human development.

Related News 

UN says world must navigate ‘reality’ of 1.5 deg C overshoot (The Straits Times, 2 September 2026)

World enters era of ‘global water bankruptcy’ (UN News, 20 January 2026)