October sees us celebrating harvest (and everyone at St Peter’s is welcome to the St Anne’s harvest supper on Saturday 13th October at 6.30pm!), which is many people’s favourite festival of the church year. It’s a relatively recent addition to the church calendar, being a Victorian invention. The inventors of the harvest festival were drawing on the Old Testament festival of ‘first fruits’, and perhaps also on the Mediaeval feast of ‘Lammas’ (a corruption of ‘Loaf-Mass’), which was celebrated near the first of August, at the wheat harvest, when the first grains of the year were milled into flour, baked into bread, and brought to church for a blessing. But the Victorians decided to celebrate harvest in the autumn, as fruit and vegetables put forth a last abundance before everything slows down for winter.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been almost overwhelmed by the productivity of the vicarage garden – especially by the wonderful and slightly terrifying bounty of plums. Many jars of jam have been made, although I didn’t entirely manage to keep up with the tree’s production – it would have been nearly a full time job to do so! But I felt a responsibility to make as much use as I could of the fruit which God’s had blessed me with. It’s a blessing, but there were moments when I wasn’t sure I wanted that blessing!
God gives us abundantly of his love, in our creation and in our redemption and in the presence of his Spirit among us. I wonder, how often do we stop to dwell on this? And how do we respond? Of course, God’s grace is a free gift – but it demands a response from us too, not because we need to earn God’s love, but because we shouldn’t waste the grace and love poured out on us. Sometimes, we might perhaps feel slightly overwhelmed by this. But God does not over-burden us – he calls us to live lives of faithful love, sharing that love with others. We’re called to bear the fruits of love and holiness – and it’s in doing that, that God’s gift to us come to its full harvest of joy.
This month will also see the launch of a six week study course that we’re inviting people from across the benefice to participate in, called “Lifting the Lid.” It aims to equip churches to support people affected by mental health issues. It’s being held in Outwood church on Tuesday evenings. (Tuesday evenings at St Mary Magdalene church, Outwood at 7.30pm)
As many of us have become increasingly aware, there are lots of people known to us who are going through hard times mentally; it’s my prayer that this course will help us to offer a little bit of support. It’s not just an us and them thing – some of us have dealt with or are dealing with the issue for ourselves, and this course should give us all a bit more insight into positive ways the church can make a difference. Blessings,
Rev Joanne Kershaw, Priest at St Anne’s, Wrenthorpe