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September 8, 2025, Adrian, Michigan – Again this year, Catholic communities will receive special guidance for Sunday liturgical celebrations during the Season of Creation, thanks to Father James Hug, SJ, and Denise Mathias, who created the 2025 Catholic Liturgical Guide.
Stretching from September 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, this liturgical season has been set aside by Christians worldwide as “a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together,” according to the Season of Creation website.
In this guide, Father Jim, Priest Chaplain for the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse since 2013, offers introductory comments; points of reflection on the Sunday Scripture readings; and suggested prayers for the opening sign of the cross, the Penitential Rite, General Intercessions, Prayer over the Gifts, Prayer after Communion, and the Final Blessing.
Denise, Music Minister for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, offers suggestions for the Responsorial Psalm and the music for each Sunday during the Season of Creation.
The two have been collaborating on these guides since 2020.
Father Jim has long been concerned about environmental issues. He noted that Pope Francis, shortly after the publication of his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, encouraged Catholics to become involved in the ecumenical celebration of the Season of Creation. Father Jim began integrating the theme of the Season of Creation into the prayers and homilies during Sunday liturgies for his Masses at the Motherhouse.
“The identification of the Season of Creation as a new liturgical season invites the whole Christian community into focused prayer and action,” Father Jim writes in his introduction to the 2025 Catholic Liturgical Guide. “The Catholic community, however, does not yet have official seasonal liturgical texts proper to the Season of Creation, and many pastors might not feel free to use the ecumenical texts of other participating Christian communities.”
In response to this need, Father Jim in 2020 created a liturgical guide for the Sundays that year during the Season of Creation and shared it with other Catholic organizations, particularly the Global Catholic Climate Movement. His aim has been to help Catholic pastors “to focus on issues of climate change and ecological spirituality” in reflections on the Sunday readings in the Catholic lectionary. “How can we get these readings and prayers and hear them in the context of our ecological dimension?”
Each year after Easter, Father Jim and Denise begin their work on the liturgical guide, following the theme set for the year by the worldwide ecumenical community. This year’s theme is “Peace with Creation.” The destruction brought on the planet through the burning of fossil fuels, overproduction, and overconsumption can be seen as “violence against the Earth,” Father Jim said. “What’s strong through this season is humility before creation and a sense of the sacredness of what we’re doing.… There’s an emphasis on what discipleship calls us to do.”
As a music minister, Denise offers suggestions on how others in the field can approach the music during the Season of Creation. “When people plan music, they can choose one song to be a theme for the season or bookend it – the same song at the beginning and the end,” she said. She also suggested that choir members learn new music first and teach it to the assembly.
Denise recommends music based on the texts of the day. “I use a lot of different resources: Catholic music resources and texts from other denominations – any musical texts that I feel are viable for the day. I read Jim’s prayers and reflections so I know what to focus on.”
Denise found it particularly gratifying to discover that the new editions of the publication, Gather, include some of the newer musical texts about ecology. “It’s coming,” she said. “Some hymn writers have been writing about creation for some time. It’s good to be able to include their texts.”
Father Jim has long been concerned about global climate change and ecological devastation. “One of the things that really hit me was the talk by the scientists of the tipping points,” the point at which various aspects of the environment can be irreversibly changed and cause great damage to the environment, Father Jim said. “We’ve already passed some of the tipping points. There’s going to be a lot of pain and suffering. We’re already seeing it.”
Denise echoed his concern for the environment. “I wonder what my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have to deal with,” she said. Still, she added, people are beginning to take action. “They have reversed some terrible situations. The Cuyahoga River was burning in the ’70s, but now it’s doing better.”
Denise sees signs of hope in new hymn writers who understand the threat of climate change, as well as in local communities who are also aware of the environmental threat. “There’s an awareness out there in many communities,” she said. “They might have community gardens. When you think about this from a spiritual point of view, this is very important – to live as sustainably as you can and to see that it’s a spiritual [matter].” Father Jim said that consciousness is growing. “One of the things that gives me hope is that consciousness doesn’t rise gradually. It rises in fits and starts and then very quickly. God is in all this, working to bring about enough rise in consciousness that can change the world.”
And as this ecological consciousness grows, so does the interest among Catholics in the Catholic Liturgical Guide. “The list grows every year,” Father Jim said. He sends the guide to various Catholic organizations and networks, including communities of women and men religious and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. There also has been talk of a Catholic publishing company eventually turning the liturgical guide into a book.
In the meantime, the Catholic Liturgical Guide is available on the Season of Creation website and on the website of the Dominican Center: Spirituality for Mission.
Caption for above feature photo: Left to Right: Father James Hug, SJ, and Denise Mathias.
June 28, 2023, Adrian, Michigan – In a spirit of joy and gratitude, Adrian Dominican Sisters, Associates, family members, and friends gathered at the Adrian Dominican Motherhouse to celebrate the combined 2,545 years of service and ministry by 38 Sisters marking their Jubilee – milestone anniversaries of their years of religious life.
Jubilee 2023 celebrated the loving dedication of eight 75-year Jubilarians, 19 Double-Diamond (70-year) Jubilarians, nine Diamond (60-year) Jubilarians, one Golden (50-year) Jubilarian, and one Silver (25-year) Jubilarian.
The celebration began on the afternoon of June 22, 2023, with a meeting of the Jubilarians with the General Council, followed by dinner. The Sisters also had time during the celebration to catch up with one another and to share memories. Sister Magdalena Ezoe, OP, composer and pianist, offered the Jubilarians, guests, and other Sisters and Associates a special piano concert on the evening of June 23, 2023.
The Jubilee celebration also included a time of remembrance and gratitude for the commitment of the Congregation’s 68 deceased Jubilarians who would have marked 75, 70, or 60 years of religious life this year. Sisters Mary Suzanne Kennedy, OP, and Janet Doyle, OP, both 60-year Jubilarians, opened the Mass for Deceased Jubilarians on June 23, 2023, with a solemn recitation of their names.
“Can you feel it – can you feel their presence?” Sister Lorraine Réaume, OP, asked in her reflection on the Mass readings. The deceased Jubilarians “are here to celebrate our shared lives and commitment that are bigger than time and space as we experience them,” she said. “Our fore-Sisters are here and they rejoice with us.”
Sister Lorraine – Vicaress, General Councilor, and Silver Jubilarian – noted that the Sisters who are alive and serving today are continuing the work of the deceased Jubilarians, who now “bask in the divine gaze of the fullness of eternal love … Isn’t that the spirit of love we have tried, at our better times, to reflect to those we encounter, to those we want to serve?”
Sister Lorraine noted the trust that Jesus still has for his disciples of today, even with their limitations. She gave the example of a Sister who, during a recent Mass, reached out to another Sister who was struggling to find her place in the hymnal and gently found the right page for her. Afterward, she helped the same Sister who was struggling to stand. “That was an example of compassion and love right here in this chapel,” she pointed out. “We see it all the time.”
Finally, Sister Lorraine recalled strongly feeling the gentle and comforting presence of the Adrian Dominican Sisters who had died. “Our Sisters go before us and are with us,” she said. “We are not alone. … We are united today in our love, our commitment, and our fidelity. In the great timeless force of Love that carries us all, we celebrate our fore-Sisters and know they still share the journey with us.”
The hymn, Jubilate Deo, sung during the June 24, 2023, Jubilee Mass, captured the joy of the Jubilarians and of the entire assembly. While every Jubilee celebration is joyous, this year’s celebration marked two additional causes for joy: it was the first in which all Jubilarians – marking Jubilee years from 75 to 25 – could celebrate together, and it was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began that guests other than Sisters could join in the celebration in person and without masks.
In her welcome, Sister Josephine Gaugier, OP, a Double-Diamond Jubilarian, noted that the designation of Jubilarians as silver, golden, and diamond implies richness, “but in this case, [they] mean an abundance of years and blessings.” In the years 1948,1953, 1963, 1973, and 1998, the Jubilarians officially gave their “yes” to vowed Dominican life. “Our yes was abundant with God’s grace, year upon year,” she said. Through both the smooth and rough times, “the Holy Spirit guided us on the way culminating in this year of Jubilee.”
In her reflection, Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Congregation, noted the rich diversity of the Jubilarians and of the calls they received. “Each of you possesses an incredible … fidelity to follow God’s call, no matter when or where or how often you heard it,” Sister Elise said to the Jubilarians. She noted the diversity of ministries: from education at all levels, as teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, and campus ministers; to ministry as therapists, counselors, or spiritual directors; in multiple roles in parishes and dioceses, with expertise in canon law, liturgical ministry, religious education, music, and adult and youth ministries.
“Who among you thought your vocation would find expression through your giftedness as an artist, or as a communicator in public relations, or through healing ministries in nursing, pharmacy, healthcare, or as a convent administrator?” Sister Elise asked. She added that commitment to justice, peace, and making the world a better place has led other Jubilarians to witness in corporate board rooms and to serve in prison ministry, justice and ecology centers, community organizing, and retreat and conference centers. “These are among the many beautiful and surprising pathways” taken by this year’s Jubilarians, she said.
Sister Elise noted that all are chosen and beloved by God. “That insight is a gift of our Christian faith,” she said. “It is another and more rare gift of our faith tradition to be called, as you were, to give your entire lives in radical service to the mission of Jesus.”
After her reflection, Sister Elise received the Jubilarians’ willingness to continue to say “yes” to their call as they renewed their vows. A festive dinner after Mass rounded out the formal celebration, but Jubilarians and their guests continued to have ample time to celebrate together informally. The sense of Jubilee continues throughout the year.