Do you know John Betjeman’s poem about the church mouse? All year he has to scratch around in the church for something to eat, but there is one time in the year when the church is suddenly full of good things! Not only fruits and corn and vegetables and eggs and bread, but full of people too, all singing in praise and thanksgiving.
In fact, the mouse observes,
“All the same, it’s strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don’t see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.”
Wouldn’t it be lovely, he thinks, if every Sunday were like this!
It is the same all over the world. Festivals of thanksgiving for the harvest are older than the Christian church - as old as humanity - and are celebrated by all religions. Harvest Festival is a “people’s service”. There is no appointed date for it in the Christian calendar: different peoples, in various parts of the world, celebrate the harvest at the time of year when they have gathered it in.
In our country, in our schools and churches, we celebrate the harvest towards the end of September or in early October. We give thanks for what farmers and gardeners have cultivated and we also give thanks for those things which grow wild and which appear every year of their own accord - berries and nuts and mushrooms. We celebrate, too, the harvest of the seas and rivers - fish and seafood. It is a time for remembering all the work of farmers and fishermen and their dependence on God’s blessing.
Churches are never more splendidly decorated than they are at Harvest Festival, with flowers, fruits and crops, and children always play a big part by bringing their gifts of produce and helping to display them. When the great thanksgiving is over, it is often the children who help to distribute the gifts to the poor, the sick or the elderly in the parish.
There are usually some crumbs and scrapings left to keep the mouse well fed and thankful, too!