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"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness": A season of Harvest Thanksgiving

It was Harvest Thanksgiving in the parish yesterday: the fruits of the earth decorating the parish church; the festive hymns of harvest; a Sunday in early Autumn marked by gratitude and thanksgiving. 

Presiding at the early Eucharist, it was clear that the days of late Summer were now past. I left the house at 8am, less than thirty minutes after sunrise. Along the roadsides of Jeremy Taylor country, fallen leaves were abundant. The hues and tones of Autumn were beginning to show in the churchyard.

The collect of Harvest Thanksgiving, as always, beautifully captured the occasion:

Eternal God, you crown the year with your goodness and give us the fruits of the earth in their season ...

The collect evokes the joyous delight of the Psalmist and the abundance of the opening chapter of Genesis, words that have resonated over centuries at this time of the year; the reference to 'season' recognises that it is in the Harvest Thanksgiving of Autumn that such delight and abundance finds particular expression.

I have often looked with a degree of longing on the observance of Thanksgiving in Canada (second Monday in October) and the United States (fourth Thursday in November). A fixed date for Thanksgiving, with a civic holiday and associated customs, seems fitting for this Autumn festival. Recently, however, I come to value our custom in these Islands, of local Harvest Thanksgivings spread over the months of September and October.  Beginning in a few parishes in early September, congregating around late September and early October, continuing in mid-October, with some drawing the season to a close in late October.

Last year I enjoyed preaching for a friend's Harvest Thanksgiving Evensong, well into October, with the sun have set before the service started. The lamp above the gate into the churchyard was shining brightly as we left the church after the service, confirmation that we were well into the darker evenings of Autumn.

In rural parishes, the date of Harvest Thanksgivings has often been negotiated and settled many decades ago (and woe betide any idea of altering these dates), preventing a clash of dates with neighbouring parishes, and thus allowing parishioners to also attend nearby Harvest services. 

Something of this sense of a season of rolling Harvest Thanksgivings is seen in the great Ronald Blythe's observations for the Sundays of September and October:

Autumn. 'The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.' Jeremiah the poet at his most poignant. Autumn ... three harvest festivals ... and these before September is out ... The harvest loaf itself has been baked at Coggeshall in the correct sheaf shape and will journey from St. John's altar to St Andrew's altar ... The church was like a greengrocer's. Nothing merely symbolic. Just 'Plenty' ... Harvest services succeed each other in the three parishes, which means variations on the same sermon, as some people attend each one ... I take the last of the harvest festivals ... taking care to include the General Thanksgiving.

By not having a fixed date in these Islands for Harvest Thanksgiving, the Sundays of late Summer, into and through Autumn, unto the cusp of Hallowtide, are marked by the offering of praise and thanksgiving in parish churches for 'the fruits of the earth in their season'. 

This has an organic quality, embracing those last days of late Summer as we feel and see Autumn approaching, into the 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', continuing as the leaves fall and the landscape quietens, drawing to a close as pumpkins and dark evenings prepare us for Hallowe'en. In many localities, services of Harvest Thanksgiving may be found in different parishes stretching across most or at least part of this time, making these Sundays of Autumn an ongoing offering of thanksgiving for the blessings of the harvest.

The local Moravian church here in Jeremy Taylor country celebrates Harvest Thanksgiving on the last Sunday in September. As I have mentioned, the parish in which I serve celebrates Harvest on the first Sunday in October. My home parish and a good friend's nearby parish do so on the second Sunday in October. These Sundays, then, are filled with the hymns of Harvest Thanksgiving, the collect echoing over the Sundays, with readings and sermons for Harvest continuing over some weeks. And with the last Harvest service I attend in mid-October, the season of Harvest Thanksgiving comes to a close for another year. 

Admittedly the lack of wider cultural recognition and festivity which accompanies the civic observance in Canada and the United States does have disadvantages. This may be balanced, however, by the sense of Harvest Thanksgiving being a season, gathering up the Sundays of late Summer and Autumn in praise and gratitude, with parish churches decorated with the fruits of the earth, and 'Come, ye thankful people, come' being heartily sung over the weeks. It is fitting that the richness of Autumn - its colours, its bounty, its early evening sunsets - should be marked with Sundays of thanksgiving for "the fruits of the earth in their season", quietening and ending as we come into late October, when most of the leaves have fallen, and we turn towards the darker days of November and Hallowtide, Remembrance, and Stir-up.

For now, however, our season of Harvest Thanksgiving happily continues, and we rejoice that "thou crownest the year with thy goodness".

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