Harvest

"Many New Church people around the world begin their
meals with the familiar thanksgiving:
O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good,
and His mercy is forever. Amen

This is a habit we share with the angels, as newcomers to the Spiritual World discovered when they were taken to an angelic society. At a banquet there, the host, the prince of that society, gave the command, and all present 'folded their hands and together murmured a devout thanksgiving to the Lord' (Conjugial Love 16). As in heaven, so upon the earth.

Giving thanks to the Lord and to each other is an important part of life. It shows that we recognise that the source of our bounty lies outside of ourselves. While a farmer may plant the seeds of a crop, the Lord brings it to fruition to give us nourishment. In this way He preserves our natural lives by feeding our bodies. We plant and eat; the Lord does the rest.

The harvest is a time when people thank the Lord for all He has given us. We are fortunate to live in a time and place of plenty. Almost any fruit or vegetable is available to us by a short trip to the grocery store, where food is always 'in season'. So, in one sense, celebrating the 'harvest' might not have the same importance as it did when people relied on the produce of their own hands for the food they ate. Of course, it would be very superficial of us to use this as an excuse to overlook the harvest or forget that we are as reliant on it as we have ever been. Our food comes packaged from a store, but it is planted and harvested somewhere. Giving thanks is an acknowledgement of the Lord's care for us.

While harvest is a time to thank the Lord for the natural food He gives us, it is also a useful time to consciously thank Him for our spiritual food, for the goodness and love that nourishes our spirits.

The Word gives us many images of sowing seeds, which in general terms represent the truth needed to develop our spiritual lives. These are implanted in our minds through reading the Word, hearing preaching and teaching from it, and even conversations (Divine Providence 154, Apocalypse Explained 1136.9). These truths germinate as we put them to use and produce the fruit, or good of charity by which we are connected with the Lord.

Each of us mirrors the cycle of nature — there is seedtime and harvest along the path of our spiritual development. It is true that from our point of view it seems as though we are the authors of our own truths and the source of the goodness we claim as our own, but that is only a similar appearance to a farmer planting seeds and claiming recognition for the growth of his crop and the fullness of its yield. In reality the Lord's actions are the cause of both natural and spiritual growth; He gives us the seed and brings forth the fruit, we enjoy the benefits.

Harvest time is an opportunity to reflect on this parallel, to acknowledge the Lord's grace and give Him thanks for it.

The essence of giving thanks is the recognition that the Lord is the source of all we have to nourish us naturally and spiritually. It is an expression of the humility needed to acknowledge the Lord's grace to us and rein in the human tendency towards self-aggrandisement. Within this humility, generated through prayerful thanks, also lies the act of worshipping the Lord by acknowledging His love and His power. This is why we, angels and ourselves, begin our meals by giving thanks and taking time on a larger scale to acknowledge the Lord at harvest. To do so is to submit ourselves to the Lord and in humility recognise His great gifts to us.

'It is true that the Lord demands humility, worship, gratitude, and so on from us. This looks like repayment, so the gift does not seem free. But it is not for His sake that the Lord demands these things. Our humility, worship, and gratitude add no glory to one who is divine. Any trace of the self-love that seeks such gestures on its own behalf is unthinkable in the Divine. No, it is for our own sake. When we are humble, we can accept goodness from the Lord, because we are then detached from self-love and the evil it spawns, which stands in the way. The Lord therefore desires a humble attitude in us on our behalf, because when we have that attitude, the Lord can flow in with heavenly goodness. The same applies to worship and gratitude.'

Arcana Caelestia 5957

Rev. Dr. Andrew Dibb