by CCW | 14 October 2013 01:00
The collects for today, Harvest Thanksgiving Day, from The Book of Common Prayer[1] (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
O LORD, we pray thee, sow the seed of thy word in our hearts, and send down upon us the showers of thy grace, that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, and at the great day of harvest may be gathered by the holy angels into the heavenly garner; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson Isaiah 55:1-12[2]
The Gospel: St. John 6:27-35[3]
Thanksgiving is a special and wonderful celebration. It seems to speak to a deep-seated spiritual sensibility in us even in our confusions, uncertainties, and denials of all things religious and spiritual. I would argue that it is fundamentally and essentially spiritual, especially in the Christian understanding.
Thanksgiving embraces at once Harvest Thanksgiving and National Thanksgiving, our thanks for the bounty of the harvest (whether or not there has been one!) and for the rational and spiritual freedoms that we enjoy (however much we ignore them!) in our nation and country. Those ‘thanksgivings’ are raised into the great thanksgiving, the eucharist of the Son to the Father, re-enacted, recalled, and re-presented in “our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” in the service of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus tells us he is the “bread of life.” That life is spiritual life that gathers into the life of God all that belongs to creation and to our humanity.
If a pumpkin could talk, what would it say? Yea, God! We are more than pumpkins (pumpkin regattas notwithstanding!) and we have the privilege and the freedom of the highest sort in giving articulate praise to God for the harvest, for the nation, for our communities, and for one another and, above all, for God himself.
Fr. David Curry
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