'This transitory life': Autumn days and the Book of Common Prayer

Now it is Autumn. The leaves are already turning in Jeremy Taylor country, mists greet us in the morning, apples are on sale from the abundant local supply, and the sun sets in early evening. During the days of Autumn, the words of the Book of Common Prayer can be heard afresh, illumining and giving deeper meaning to the thoughts evoked by the season. 

... this peace of the dying season, this vibrancy of quiet rest, in autumn's arriving night - Christopher Yokel, 'Lux in Tenebris'

As the days grow shorter, with mornings slowly becoming darker and the sun setting in early evening, soon to be late afternoon, autumnal darkness gathers around Matins and Evensong. 'Autumn's arriving night' can give a renewed meaning to familiar words. At Matins, in the Benedictus, as mornings grow darker, we hail the One who is the Light in all our experiences of darkness:

To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death ...

At Evening Prayer, words we have offered during bright Summer evenings can assume a new immediacy during late afternoon in Autumn: 

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord ...

As the season's "arriving night" quietly gathers over these weeks, Prayer Book Morning and Evening Prayer draw us to 'Hail gladdening Light', illumining the gentle darkness of Autumn with the comfort and joy of Light Eternal.

This is the feast-time of the year ... A richer, fuller overflow - Dora Read Goodale

With Autumn Sundays comes Harvest Thanksgiving. In these Islands, Harvest Thanksgivings stretch over the Sundays of September into late October. Pumpkins, vegetables, and flowers decorate parish churches. 'Come, ye thank people, come' is heartily sung. With friends in Canada celebrating Thanksgiving in mid-October and those in the United States in late November, Fall resonates with thanksgiving for the blessings of harvest.

The words of the Venite, therefore, are a joyful continuation throughout the days of Autumn of thanksgiving for harvest:

O come, let us sing unto the Lord ... In his hand are all the corners of the earth ... O come, let us worship and fall down : and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

In the Litany, we likewise acknowledge the Creator from whom come the blessings of the harvest, as we rejoice in His bounty: 

give and preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, so as in due time we may enjoy them

When we offer the General Thanksgiving in Autumn days, its words give voice to our delight in the rich bounty of Autumn and harvest:

We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life ...

Throughout this "feast-time of the year", the Prayer Book gathers up our thanks and praise for harvest, ensuring that Autumn days echo with thanksgiving for "the kindly fruits of the earth".

Oct. 11. - Candles lit in the choir for the first time at evening prayers ... the dark season - M.R. James 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral'

Autumn begins with a gentle darkness but we soon feel "the dark season". It is hinted at in the collect for Saint Michael and all Angels, as we petition the everlasting God that the holy angels might "defend us on earth". As late September darkness falls on Michaelmas, as we look ahead to All Hallows' Eve and think of darker November days, the visible darkness can suggest a no less real invisible darkness. In "the dark season", we are to be grateful that ministering spirits defend us.

In the Second Collect at Evening Prayer we pray that we might be "defended from the fear of our enemies", the invisible no less than the visible. The title of the Third Collect echoes in "the dark season", 'for Aid against all Perils' - all perils, seen and unseen:

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night ...

In "the dark season", these daily prayers offered at Evensong hold us before the God who delivers us from evil, who sends his ministering spirits to succour us, whose grace and mercy hold us in all our dark times. 

In time’s maze over the fall fields, we name names that went west from here, names that rest on graves - Wendell Berry, 'The Wild Geese'

Autumn is the season of the departed. Its shorter days and falling leaves evoke memories of loss. Autumnal days are the fitting backdrop for the graveyard. All Saints' Day and Remembrancetide collect our memories of the faithful departed and of those who fell in two world wars and conflicts since.

When in the Apostles' Creed at Morning and Evening Prayer we proclaim our hope in "The Resurrection of the Body; And the life everlasting" - echoed in the petition of the Prayer of Saint Chrysostom, "and in the world to come life everlasting" - we are placing our recollection of the faithful departed and of the fallen in the context of this hope, the hope defined by the Resurrection of Christ our Lord.

And so, in the General Thanksgiving, as we think during Autumn days of the graves of loved ones, friends, and parishioners, of the war memorial in the parish church bearing the names of those who fell in far off fields and vast oceans, we give thanks "for the hope of glory", "for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive".

With memories of the faithful departed and the fallen particularly close in this season, the words of the Prayer for the Church Militant become even more meaningful and precious:

And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom: Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate.

Here the memories and the remembrance of the season are gathered up in the Christian hope.

Another year gone, leaving everywhere its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves, the uneaten fruits crumbling damply in the shadows, unmattering back - Mary Oliver, 'Fall Song'

The year is reaching its end. The short-lived glories of this season; the falling leaves; the shorter, colder days; the harvest past; the bare trees that we will see in November. Autumn is the season which reminds us of our mortality, that all earthly things will pass.

And so, each day at Evensong, we pray that we "may pass our time in rest and quietness", trusting in the gracious providence of the God who gives "that peace which the world cannot give". Likewise, at the Holy Communion, we pray recognising the character of "this transitory life". Such phrases deeply resonate in Autumn days, as we journey through this season, aided and ministered to by the Book of Common Prayer.

(The first and third photographs are, respectively, the parish church and The Middle Church in Jeremy Taylor country, Autumn 2023. The second is of Drumbo Parish Church, near Belfast, also last Autumn.)