Top Three Feast days in Ireland? Christmas, Easter, and Harvest

And the Greatest of These Is Harvest

I hate Harvest Thanksgiving. — I was astounded to hear these words come out of this person’s mouth. I was speechless.

The rector I now work with had given me responsibility for one of the two Harvest Thanksgiving festivals to be held in the parish. Mine was an ecumenical service for the Dingle Peninsula. I was learning about the many moving parts of this major event in the church year: an order of service to write, the Catholic priest to include, one of the peninsula’s legendary musicians to recruit, along with a choir from the next village and members from a second choir up the hill, a church to decorate, a community hall to reserve, a reception to organize, and multiple media outlets to inform. Plus the contact information for all of the above to ferret out. Cue the sleepless nights, wondering what I would forget.

It turns out most of these tasks were performed by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Next year I will not be quite so overwhelmed.

But in the midst of these preparations I was confessing my case of overwhelm to a person who shall remain nameless, when I heard that disparaging comment. I hate Harvest Thanksgiving.

The sentiment was repeated by a clergy colleague a few weeks later. This time I managed to ask the obvious question. Why?

People think it’s more important than Easter!

Well there it is. I should have guessed.

Good little seminary-trained Christian that I am, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the clan of the round collars—the priests. So I know that Easter is the most important feast of the Church year, when we celebrate the Resurrection—Jesus rising from the dead. It is the climax of forty days’ fasting and penitence, culminating in the remembrance of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross which saves us from our sins.

But I am old. I don’t have energy for sin anymore.

There. I’ve said it.

The people in the pews in front of me on a Sunday morning also are old. And even though old, they are still working, working hard. They also don’t have energy for sin anymore. For them, harvest is the climax of their year.

Some years the harvest is bountiful.

This year the summer was cold and damp, not so bountiful. One woman lamented, We only have twelve apples from our trees! We’ll have to buy to decorate the church.

But decorate they did, with flowers, eggs, pots of homemade jam, carrots, a loaf of bread in the center of the altar. . . and those twelve apples.

This lady takes charge of the decorating at the church in town. It takes a small army, each person knowing her task. It is a labor of love, of thanksgiving, of worship. We round collars take our part on Sunday when we lead the prayers. But it’s really not our show.

I raised the topic with a third person, one of the women in this army. I am discovering that in Ireland the three greatest feasts in the Christian year are Christmas, Easter, and Harvest.

Her answer: Yes, and not in that order. Harvest is the greatest.

Potatoes, beets, turnips on display, even turf! It’s not legal in Ireland to harvest turf for sale anymore, only for private use. The locals say, Dublin doesn’t pay our electric bill. So I didn’t inquire as to the source of this turf.

This is the people’s feast. And these people are still intimately connected to the land, the seasons of the land, the worship that flows naturally from the land.

The clan of the round collars has tried to impose a theology that leans heavily into a legal system, a relationship with God that is about what is owed and how debts are paid. Most of the year, that theology prevails.

Harvest Thanksgiving is about a relationship with God that is framed around what is received and how appreciation is expressed.

Now that I am old, my body leans toward the land. I will soon lie within it, my bones enriching the harvest. May my last breath give thanks.

Because the greatest of these is Harvest Thanksgiving.

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                                      Do you give thanks? How? For what?