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Cambridge parish celebrates creation with garden tidy-up

Parishes across the Diocese of East Anglia have been holding Creation Celebrations over the summer. St Laurence’s in Cambridge, a CAFOD Live Simply parish, combined its Creation Celebration with a garden tidy-up. CAFOD Parish Coordinator Serga Collet reports.


We had a fabulous Creation Celebration on Sunday July 17.  This was combined with a garden tidy-up the previous day. Lots of helpers came along and worked extremely hard to improve our parish environment, spurred on by refreshments.

Fr Simon Blakesley joined in too, planting a Monkey Puzzle tree in the church gardens, to encourage the replanting of trees and general care of the environment, even his dog Bentley helped.

 The Sunday Creation Celebration was a memorable occasion. The children’s liturgy group made individual leaves with their names written on them, which were brought in and hung on a ‘tree of life’ on the altar. After the Eucharistic prayer the children returned to the altar and used Makaton signing led by myself and another Makaton user to sign the Our Father to the congregation who signed it back to us. This was extremely well received, as were the bidding prayers and hymns, which were all linked to creation.

After Mass we moved into the parish rooms where we enjoyed a well-attended parish picnic, which was a bring and share event with varied and international dishes. As the weather was good, we were able to enjoy it in the newly tidied garden. 

More creation themed events are planned. We will join in the World Prayer Day for Creation during Mass on September 1. Another Saturday garden tidy-up will be held in October, as we intend this to be a regular event. 

It’s not too late to plan a Creation Celebration for your parish, take a look at CAFOD.org.uk or contact eastanglia@cafod.org.uk

Pictured above are the St Laurence garden tidy-up and Creation Celebration.

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