Joanna Bogle on "Harvesting September Graces"

Pro Ecclesia favorite Joanna Bogle writes in the September 9-15, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Register:

I’m busy with pans of bubbling fruit and careful measurements of sugar. My fingers are stained from picking blackberries.

We’re in the preserving season, and I’m doing things as I was taught long ago. My shelves will have plenty of fruit for the winter, packed in syrup or made into jelly. This gives me a cozy, old-fashioned feeling. And yet this state of mind isn’t as Catholic as I’d like it to be.

In England, if people mention Harvest Festival, you can be pretty sure they are Anglicans. The very words are quintessentially Church of England, suggesting displays of fruits and flowers in beautiful medieval churches, and choirboys with voices like flutes.

But Catholics were thanking God for the harvest long before the Church of England broke away to carve itself a niche in history. In medieval England, the first wheat harvested was used for hosts at a celebratory Mass, the fields having earlier been blessed at Ascensiontide, and things culminated with Michaelmas celebrations in September.

We should reclaim this heritage.

Because of history, the Catholic faith in England, once revived, was predominantly urban. This trend also traveled to America. Irish emigrants were not from cities — they were mostly rural — but they settled in them. When Irish culture began to predominate over other Catholic cultures in the United States, something urban stuck, too.

And yet, still, man’s links with the countryside are practical. Food is grown and raised there, after all. It would be silly to ignore this or to dismiss harvest thanksgiving simply because fields of wheat, or country lanes lined with blackberries, seem remote.

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My Comments:
Isn't it about time you got a subscription to National Catholic Register?

Also, you should consider getting yourself a copy of Mrs. Bogle's A Book of Feasts and Seasons.