Harvest Festival – in London?

Harvest Festival – in London!?

Father Andrew Moughtin-Mumby,
Rector of St Peter’s Church, Walworth

This Sunday we’ll be celebrating a festival Sung Mass for Harvest Festival – at 10.30am followed by a bring and share lunch party in the Crypt: all are welcome! Our first hymn will begin: ‘We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand!’

We don’t have any fields in London, instead we rely on our bread, milk, meat and vegetables being brought in from other parts of the country where they do have fields. I grew up in Lincolnshire, and as I child I remember watching the crops growing and changing colour day by day as I travelled to school by car or bus. In London, we know the changing of the seasons from our trees and parks, not from the golden barley becoming ready for harvesting.

So why celebrate Harvest Festival in Walworth? Well, firstly, we need to remember that even though we have no fields and farmers here, we do depend on the earth for our food and drink. We must pray for our farmers and the people who work on the land, especially as they are pushed hard to lower prices by the supermarkets who bring the food they produce to our city.

And secondly, it is always important to be thankful. To thank God for all the good gifts we receive: at every meal we eat while some people go hungry at home and abroad, when we go home while some are homeless in London and in war zones around the world, when we are able to gather as friends while some are lonely and isolated.

We express our thankfulness by praising God and giving worship and praying for those who go hungry and thirsty. And at our Harvest Festival Mass we’ll be bringing gifts of tinned food, toiletries and clothes to be taken to the Manna Centre for homeless people at London Bridge – gifts which help countless visitors less fortunate than us throughout the year. We’re grateful to members of St Peter’s Church, St Peter’s School and also Tyke’s Corner for contributing gifts for the Manna Centre this Harvest Festival. Thank you!

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above; then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all his love.