HARVEST FESTIVAL

The Harvest Festival is a long-standing tradition and celebrates a successful yield for farmers across the country. Today, it focuses on charitable giving, specifically sharing food with those who do not have access to basic provisions.

In Britain, thanks have been given for successful harvests since pagan times. Harvest festival is traditionally held on the Sunday near or of the Harvest Moon. This is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. The celebrations on this day usually include singing hymns, praying, and decorating churches with baskets of fruit and food in the festival known as Harvest Festival, Harvest Home, Harvest Thanksgiving or Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving.

The Harvest Festival tradition pre-dates Christianity and dates back to the pagan times and the name derives from the Old English word 'Haerfest' meaning 'Autumn'. Today's church celebrations only began in earnest in Victorian times, when the Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker invited his parishioners to a special harvest thanksgiving service at the church in Morwenstow, Cornwall in 1843.

In Buttsbury this year we will celebrate Harvest on Sunday 17th September at 5.30pm. Do come - there will be refreshments in church following the service.

PET SERVICE

In times past people took their dogs to church and straw mixed with rosemary was often placed on the floor, and incense would have sweetened the air. For this service, if it is practical, such an atmosphere could be recreated. Humans, like animals, have senses.

and when all our senses are engaged in worship we are most truly ourselves before God. A Service of the blessing of pets is a wonderful opportunity to thank God for the gift of animals, and for us to ask God's blessing on all that he has made. A blessing involves praise of God; the wish that spiritual good fortune will go with what is blessed and dedicates someone or something for a sacred purpose. A blessing also reminds us that all good gifts are gifts from God.

Our Pet Service this year is on Sunday 15th October at 5.30pm

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

The Remembrance Day service is on Sunday 12th November at 3.30pm. A wreath will be laid at the foot of the memorial in the West end of the church. Did you know that the Memorial was carved by Woodward, a Stock cabinet maker? It is very unusual in that it not only records the names of those who fell but also of those who served. The two outside panels record all those who served and the centre panel all those fell. The numbers of each family who served is shown against the family name on the outer panels.

EVENSONG

Evensong dates back to the time of the Reformation, using elements of the old monastic Offices of Vespers and Compline. The liturgy (a fixed set of words and ceremonial features) that the Church uses to this day was laid out in Archbishop Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, the first version of which appeared in 1549. The music took shape a few decades later, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, with great composers like William Byrd and Thomas Tallis developing exquisite polyphonic choral music specifically for this new service, and in each subsequent generation new composers have continued to add masterworks of classical choral music to the repertoire of Evensong.