Good day,

This is a big heads up for you:

Friday, November 1, 7pm at Holy Trinity (in the Trinity Centre) is a worship service of Holy Eucharist for All Saints’ Day. Please mark your calendars and attend if you can (unless your own congregation is having a service that day, of course). All Saints’ Day is a Principal Feast in the Anglican Church – one of just seven Principal Feasts so it is a very big deal. The other six Principal Feasts are Easter Day, Ascension, the Day of Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Christmas Day, and the Epiphany. Our rubrics for our calendar observances very clearly tell us that, if your church observes All Saints’ on the Sunday after (Nov.3) that observance is to be in addition to having observed it right on the actual day. It may be convenient to only gather for worship on Sundays but that sends the message that these Feasts aren’t important enough to celebrate if they don’t happen to fall on a Sunday. 

More big heads ups:

Online Bible Studies begin on Wednesday, November 20, 7pm and will go until Wednesday, December 18. We will be discussing readings that occur during Advent along with other topics of interest. I’ll send out the link when the start date is closer.

Advent Retreat: Saturday, November 23, 9am – noon at the Trinity Centre.  

St. Andrew’s Day ACW Corporate Communion is Thursday, November 28, 11:30am at the cathedral.

Holy Trinity, SSM, is having their Christmas Market on Saturday, November 30, 11am – 3pm in the Trinity Centre.

A Liturgical Note For You:

Harvest Thanksgiving: Monday, October 14 is the secular Thanksgiving Day holiday. For many people, the Sunday is the better day to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families and enjoy a big meal together. This is also the Sunday that our church provides the option of acknowledging Thanksgiving. Since Sunday is actually not Thanksgiving Day, we call the Sunday “Harvest Thanksgiving”. [Note: Harvest Thanksgiving can be observed any Sunday around this time of year]. There are readings provided for the day but, if following the lectionary is important, you can keep the lectionary readings and acknowledge Harvest Thanksgiving in the Intercessions as well as by singing some great harvest hymns.

Worship services in thanksgiving for harvests have a long history, beginning in ancient times with a couple of festivals mentioned in Scripture – there is the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Ingathering (check out Exodus 23:16, for example). Over the centuries, various countries have called for national “Thanksgiving Days” for a variety of reasons – at the end of conflict, when a widespread sickness finally abated, and when there is an especially plentiful harvest. 

Harvest Thanksgiving as we know it is a very recent addition to our worship. The first church to make the Harvest Thanksgiving an annual service is believed to be the church of St. Mary and St. Giles at Buckerell, near Honiton in Devon, England. Rev. Edwin Coleridge, held a Harvest Thanksgiving at Buckerell on Friday, 14 October 1840, and then held one every year when the parish church was decorated with fruits of the harvest.  The first Harvest Thanksgiving on a Sunday is thought to have been Sunday, October 1, 1843 in Cornwall, England. The Rev. Robert Hawker of Morwenstow invited all of his parishioners to a special Sunday service to share communion bread made from newly harvested corn. Having freshly made bread created from the fruits of the harvest is a wonderful tradition to begin in your church if you normally use wafers.

By the way, the word “harvest” is the Anglo-Saxon word “haerfest” (Autumn) and refers to the season of reaping and gathering. 

A Thanksgiving prayer for you: God of heaven and earth, we sing of your bounty and your goodness in the abundant harvest, in the changing seasons, and in the wonder of nature. With generous hearts, may we share what we have received with those who have little, so that none may hunger or thirst and all may know your wide justice; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For Your Devotions:

Thursday, October 10th is the commemoration of Paulinus, First Bishop of York, Missionary, died 644.  In 601, Paulinus – a Roman monk – was sent to England by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the inhabitants to Christianity. He was made a bishop and set off for Northumbria. The life of an Archbishop in England was a lot different back then – Paulinus did convert the king of Northumbria (Edwin) and many others but then fled to Kent when Edwin was murdered by Anglo-Saxon kings bent on destroying the newly founded church. Never a dull moment…For more information check out p.300 here: http://c2892002f453b41e8581-48246336d122ce2b0bccb7a98e224e96.r74.cf2.rackcdn.com/ForAlltheSaints.pdf

In the joy of Christ,

Susan