laudable Practice

Early October. The colours of Autumn can be seen. Leaves begin to fall. The days are shortening. And yesterday it was Harvest Thanksgiving in the parish. Beginning in September, increasing in early- and mid-October, with some found here and there in late-October, many churches across these Islands have observed or will observe Harvest Thanksgiving. The Sundays of mid-Autumn, then, ring out with the collect of harvest, "we yield thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty"; with the singing of 'Come, ye thankful people, come'; and with the words of Deuteronomy, "When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee". It is a time of year I particularly enjoy. The evocative colours of Autumn, the mists and the apples, the colder mornings and early evening sunsets, the chestnuts and pumpkins: it is a time to give thanks for the richness and bounty of the year. It is also fitting to give thanks...

... may pass our time in rest and quietness The evenings are shorter, the early mornings cooler; the verdant greenery of High Summer is now faded; the birdsong is quieter; the hedgerows are full of berries; chestnuts are falling. With the last days of August, late Summer begins to draw to a close. It is a time of year I particularly enjoy, its own 'micro-season' when we begin to feel Autumn approach. The loud, brash days of Summer are past. Late Summer is quieter, more modest. It is a time when, for me, the words of the Second Collect at Evening Prayer have a seasonal resonance, reflected in the passage of the year, in the landscape preparing for autumnal days. This occurs as parish life resumes after the Summer break, as schools, colleges, and universities begin a new academic year, as the Summer holidays begin to recede into memory, and the Christmas holidays still feel somewhat distant. All this activity, however, only seems to emphasise the quietness of the landscape in lat...

From a Harvest sermon preached by Old High William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865) in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, in 1839: All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. These words we repeat in their course when we come to them in their place in the Psalms, with a sort of general notion that they are true; but when the Heavens are black with clouds and wind, when the voice of God's thunder is heard round about, and His lightnings shine upon the ground, then, indeed, we feel that His works are praising the power and majesty of God. Or, to take one other instance, when the vallies stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and sing, when it appears as though the clouds in months past had indeed dropped fatness, and when God is crowning the year with His goodness before our eyes; we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him by setting forth the greatness and abundance o...

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 of...

From a sermon by John Keble for The Sunday before Advent. In this rather beautiful introduction to the sermon, we can quite clearly hear the voice of the author of The Christian Year , evoking Autumn passing into Winter, on the cusp of Advent: The time just before Advent is a very serious and thoughtful season to all who take notice of time as the Church invites them. It is just the season of decay: the last leaves are falling, and the last flowers are ceasing to blow. We naturally look back and begin to consider how the weeks and months have passed, since those leaves were fresh: how many things we meant to do then, more than we have really done, how unlike in many respects the face of things now is, to what we wished and expected then. Also, we must be very blind or very thankless, if we fail at such times to notice the many mercies, more than we could expect, and very far more than we deserve, which our gracious God has continued to us: kind friends, beloved kinsmen, peaceful times...

And Is it not enough that every year A richly laden autumn should unfold And shimmer into being leaf by leaf ... All Hallows' Eve and words from Malcolm Guite's poem for Autumn come to mind. Today we bring the season of Harvest Thanksgiving, our yearly rejoicing in "A richly laden autumn," to a close. The pumpkins, nuts, and apples which decorated our churches for the Harvest festival now decorate our homes. Pumpkin soup and apple pie sit on the table. It is one last day of rejoicing in Autumn's bounty and the Harvest season, looking back on weeks when we have delighted in the divine goodness which has, for another year, "graciously given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season". Sky and hills and woods are one, grey and dead. Hard to believe there be daffodils, That green things will happen again. At night houses shine out in cries across fields of floodwater, The cold of wet and wind like the cut of a spade in a bare hand. With All Hallow'...

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 ...

On this Wednesday of September Embertide, my thoughts turn to the impending arrival of Autumn. We are now in the very last days of Summer, with cooler mornings and darker evenings already having an autumnal character. On Saturday, with the autumnal equinox, we enter into Autumn. That the days of September Embertide should fall now is, of course, no coincidence. The Ember Days are, as the Prayer Book tells us, "at the Four Seasons", marking the movement into each new season with penitence and abstinence. A time of penitence and abstinence before entering into Autumn prepares us to receive the gifts of the season. Indeed, such a time of penitence draws us into discernment, appropriate for Autumn's quieter days, mellow scenes, and - with the decline of the year - air of melancholy. Penitence drawing us into discernment prepares us to still and quieten ourselves for a more reflective time of year, even amidst the work September and the months ahead bring; to see the beauty of...

There is an "even-tide" in the year - a season when the sun withdraws his propitious light - when the winds arise, and the leaves fall, and nature around us seems to sink into decay ... A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant. He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more "blossoms like the rose;" the song of joy is no more heard among the branches; and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer. Whatever may be the passions which society has awakened, we pause amid this apparent desolation of nature. We sit down in the lodge "of the wayfaring man in the wilderness," and we feel that all we witness is the emblem of our own fate. Such, in a few years, will be our own condition - from the Guardian archive, 11th November 1840, 'The gentle melancholy of autumn'. Tomorrow is Michaelmas, the fir...

For the Ember Week in September Almighty God, who givest to all life, and breath, and all things; and bringest forth good out of the earth for the use of man; Keep us ever in mind, that this world, with all the glory of it, fadeth, and the fashion thereof passeth away; and grant that we may so use the fruits of the ground which thou hast now given us, and all other temporal blessings wherewith thou crownest the year, as we abuse them not to the satisfying of our wanton and inordinate appetites; but may evermore serve thee in Christian temperance and sobriety, as it becometh those who, living on earth, have their conversation in heaven, that at the last we may be admitted into thy heavenly kingdom, where we shall never hunger or thirst again, being satisfied with the plenteousness of thy house, and filled with the abundance of thy pleasures for evermore. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen. John Cosin's prayer for September Embertide - from his ...

The days are noticeably shorter and colder.  The leaves are gathering on roads and footpaths.  We are in the midst of Autumn, with its transitory richness both a moment of joy but also an intimation of our mortality. Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree - Emily Bronte, ' Fall, leaves, fall '. October is also the season of Harvest Thanksgiving in these Islands, with parish churches giving thanks for the bounty of the harvest. We yield thee hearty thanks that thou hast safely brought us to the season of harvest visiting the earth and blessing it, and crowning the year with thy goodness - Church of Ireland BCP 1926, A Form of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest. In Canada, today is Thanksgiving Day, celebrated amidst the bounty of Fall and harvest.   O MOST merciful Father, we humbly thank thee for all thy gifts so freely bestowed upon us - Canadian BCP 1962, Collect f...

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is during Autumn that the Third Collect at Evensong has a particular resonance.  The days are shortening, the evenings are darker.  Evensong during these weeks is often said or sung as the sun is setting, the mellow beauty of Autumnal sunset the background to our evening prayer. As Autumn progresses, as the leaves fall, the days become colder and shorter, as the year declines, intimations of our vulnerability present themselves in a way that is not the case during the exuberance of Spring or the glory of Summer.  Cooler days and darker evenings, falling leaves and the approach of the year's end. They remind us of our vulnerabilities and frailties. It has been a year when we have been confronted with our vulnerabilities and frailties in an unexpected and disconcerting fashion, as a virus sprea...