Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
Just at the moment I seem to be talking about little else but harvest, as the five parishes of the Anglesey Group of parishes start to lay plans for their Harvest Festival celebrations. During August the farmers will be labouring hard to gather the harvest safely in, and, despite all the modernising and building that is taking place in our countryside, it seems to me that farming still dominates the lovely landscape in which we live. I have made it very clear to all my five Parochial Church Councils that I would very much like to see all my parishes regard Harvest Festival as being a truly village occasion, designed to include as wide a cross-section of the people of each village as possible.
Frank Topping has written a marvellous prayer about Harvest which looks at the its meaning from a slightly different perspective from that with which we usually approach the festival:
Lord, your harvest is the harvest of love;
love sown in the hearts of people;
love that spreads out
like the branches of a great tree
covering all who shelter;
love that inspires and recreates;
love that is planted in the weak and weary,
the sick and the dying.
The harvest of your love is the life that reaches
through the weeds of sin and death
to the sunlight of resurrection.
Lord, nurture my days with your love,
water my soul with the dew of forgiveness,
that the harvest of my life may be your joy.
That wonderful prayer speaks of the true meaning of a Christian community, a community where all are united under a common bond of fellowship, love and care for our neighbour. I have always felt that traditional village Harvest Festivals express that true meaning in the happiness and togetherness of a shared harvest meal and a Church celebration.
We had a very happy and pleasurable time praying for the harvest in our Rogation Sunday services on the farms, so let us now all make a resolution to take time this September/October to join together to celebrate and to thank God for the harvest, and as we do so, to share together in love and fellowship.
Look out for details of your Church's Harvest celebration in this magazine.
May God bless you all,