Our parish is having a 'Harvest Mass' at the end of September (25 OT) at which folk will be asked to bring tins of food to go to our local centre for homeless and vulnerable. Its being billed as 'Harvest', but to my knowledge, no-one in the parish cultivates tinned food (unless there have been some developments in GM crops of which I'm unaware ) so while harvesty stuff might be expected, but will not actually be relevant.
Anyone any suggestions on music that is actually social justice in theme but might give a nod to harvest?
I have no intention of either ploughing fields or scattering seed, good or otherwise!
How about 'For the fruits of all creation'? Brings the social justice you are looking for together, along with the harvesty one.
I would have been right there with you on how harvest wasn't relevant to 'my' community when I lived in a grotty bit of south London, until I got an allotment and found most of the parish down there.... which caused me to adjust my ideas a bit. I mean, we all have to eat!
So don't drop the harvest theme entirely - it's God who sends the rain and sun, not Tesco or Sainsbury. You personally don't plough the fields and scatter but somebody does, so that the rest of us can eat chips (well perhaps not chips, as I'm not sure seed potatoes are scattered ).
And, of course, it would be quite a good thing for everyone to bring food to Mass and bring it up in the procession with the gifts every Sunday (see GIRM 73). It's not just a gimmicky thing we can add on to a 'harvest' service but something we can actually do ourselves to redress a bit of the balance.
(Homily over - you can all stop reading the newsletter now!)
We used to do something Harvesty randomly somewhere in September or October. Which seemed to involve tinned food and also bananas. Wandering up the aisle and sitting forlornly on the altar. Without the big harvest hymns though because we don't seem to know those. It was all a bit sad.
Anyway, last year we did more Peace and Justicey thing or was it eco I have forgotten, it was very liked by our parish, and the year before we did Fair Trade with leaflets and stuffy like, oh yes, Chocolate and bananas after Mass-oh, and a display of Fair Trade goods. Yes, we make it a Mass to collect for CAFOD, now it is all coming back to me, you can get loads of stuff from them to hand out and prayers and stuff too....... what did we sing? We put up posters and looked like we were a bit active, nothing however compared to the local Anglican parish where they are really social justice and so on, I expect I am off thread by now. We got our primary school involved to make posters or something, oh yes, I remember, we put them up all over the walls, and the year before we got them to write out some prayers for Fair Trade and decorate them, did we laminate them and sell them? I forget. Which reminds me, better look up a suitable week to commandeer for it this year. Off to look in the Liturgy Planner.
I know this isn't a musical suggestion, but the tenor of Oops!' thoughts about harvest brought back memories of cringe making services I've sat through.
joint URC/Methodist. Their various resources look good for service planning, but, maybe more important, going further into our role of responsibility for God's creation.
) so while harvesty stuff might be expected, but will not actually be relevant.
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