Revd Jess has asked me for a Harvest reflection for the parish magazine. Before that, it might be a good idea to introduce myself.

Revd Canon Shane Griffiths, previous vicar of three parishes on the Lizard peninsula. Currently I'm residing in Bude helping to cover services across the deaneries of Stratton and Trigg Major until the end of November. Just to say, thank you all for the warm welcome that has been extended to my wife Jacquie and myself. We are really enjoying our time here.

So, on to my reflection. As I’m sure you all know, the idea of a special Harvest Thanksgiving service comes from Cornwall. In October 1834, the Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker decided to hold a Harvest service in his church at Morwenstow. Here is what he said to his parishioners on the thirteenth of September 1834:

‘God has been merciful to us this year . . . he hath filled our garners with increase, and satisfied our poor with bread. . . . Let us offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving . . . Let us gather together in the chancel of our church on the first Sunday of [October] and there receive, in the bread of the new corn, that blessed sacrament which was ordained to strengthen and refresh our souls.’

Hawker’s idea caught on, and before long the practice of holding a special Harvest Thanksgiving service had spread to all parts of the Church of England.

Hawker is probably best known as the author of the Cornish anthem, ‘And shall Trelawney die?’ He was quite a character, if not an out-and-out eccentric. For example, he would take his nine cats and his dog into his church for Morning Prayer. Legend has it that he excommunicated one of the cats for catching a mouse on a Sunday.

Like many vicars in the nineteenth century, Hawker was a farmer himself, and knew what an anxious time harvest could be. In a letter to a friend one year in July, he said that ‘To me it is life or death in the harvest field – and to how many more of my poor parishioners’. The weather, as always, was crucial. A good harvest was certainly something to be thankful for. Hawker had a strongly mystical side to his character. He believed that we are surrounded all the time by spiritual beings, and the whole process of growth and harvest was sustained by the presence of God. In one sermon, he told his congregation that when farmers had sown the seed, their work was done. But, he went on,

‘God and his angels then enter the field – a mighty power broods over the grain, and the life below begins to move, and first the blade cometh up, and then the stalk, and then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear arises into light and growth beneath the silent touch of God’.

I think that’s a wonderfully imaginative way of describing how the power of God is at work in the fields of corn that will eventually be made into the bread we eat.

We are indeed richly blessed by God's grace and abundance. Harvest blessings to you all. 

PLEASE NOTE. This and all other entries in 'News and Notices' are usually listed in order of date published or amended.