Family Communion for Harvest: celebrant the Rev. Cynthia Finnerty.
First reading: Psalm 65.9-13
Gospel: John 6.1-14

At this service we shall collect donations for the Manna Centre, a day centre in Southwark for homeless people. Please follow this link for a list of their main requirements (if necessary, highlight, right click, and click 'Go to') :

https://www.mannasociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/HF-list-2023.pdf

Afterwards there will be a traditional Harvest Lunch, to which all are welcome.

The service is the third of our 'Young People in the Bible' series. It focuses on John's account of the feeding of the five thousand, in which the initial five loaves and two fishes are offered by a boy; as in the stories of Naaman and Moses, the critical action which sets the sequence of events in motion is performed by a young person who could easily have been too shy or intimidated to approach their elders. At the very least, the boy in John's narrative isn't afraid of being laughed at. This time the first reading doesn't explicitly involve young people but is a celebration of God's bounty. Nevertheless, children belong amongst the gifts God provides for their parents and for wider society, and for that reason, amongst others, take part in harvest-time religious processions in Catholic countries.

The right-hand panel of the battered altarpiece above shows that its anonymous artist followed John's version of the story, with the loaves and fishes being offered by quite a small child (Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht). The attachment below is part of the lead frieze on the medieval font in Brookland church, on Romney Marsh, showing the seasonal activities of reaping, threshing and pressing grapes; it is a reminder that our harvest festival is not only a very ancient tradition, but also one which underlines the close relationship between the spiritual and material realms.

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