Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C: 07.09.25
9.30am: St. Patrick’s Church, Ballyroan
Harvest Thanksgiving
Introduction:
The word “hate”[1] is very strong, vitriolic in its expression and sentiment. I don’t like it and it’s not a word you’ll find in my vocabulary. And Jesus isn’t using it the way we understand hate today. Scripture scholars suggest a more accurate translation is “to love less”[2], in other words to love Jesus less than we love our parents, our families, our friends.
As I welcome Ballyroan families to this Harvest Thanksgiving Mass, I want to assure you Jesus is not in any way jealous, he is just offering perspective. He puts a stark choice before us. We cannot be his followers unless we shoulder our cross. We may be afraid that it’s beyond our capacity to carry, we may worry that it’s too much or we may be concerned that we are simply going to crumble under its weight.
The Eucharist gives us the nourishment we need, the strength we need, the heart we need, to deal with whatever cross comes our way. And so we pray:
- Is tusa Tobar na Trócaire – you are the wellspring of mercy: A Thiarna, déan trócaire
- Is tusa Slí na Fírinne – you are the way of Truth: A Chríost, déan trócaire
- Bí linn i gcónaí, ós ár gcomhair amach – be with us always, showing us the way. A Thiarna, déan Trócaire
Homily:
Harvest Thanksgiving! I’m a farmers son, I know a little about the harvest, although at home we, like many diary farmers, don’t grow crops, but buy in grain for feeding, and straw for bedding as necessary. We all enjoy the sight of a combine in full throttle, leaving dust in its wake. No better summer than the past few months to enjoy such a picture!
Harvest Thanksgiving! Winter barley, winter wheat, spring barley, winter oats, spring oats, oil seed rape, beans, peas, potatoes, carrots, beetroot to mention just some of the crops. Winter wheat in Carlow realised around 4.2 tons/acre with winter barley yielding around 3.7tons/acre. Moisture is everything. I think of the young neighbour at home who when he saw the first combine with a cab with wipers for the driver to sit into, he believed you could then harvest in the rain! By all accounts this year was a bumper year for oil seed rape, a crop that needs an element of moisture. This is the crop that catches your eye with their yellow rape seed flower in late April or May. Time then to get the camera out.
Harvest Thanksgiving! Another eye catching moment are the fields of sunflowers, and many of them offering a fundraising opportunity for a local cancer support centre or a hospice group. Harvest is not just about tonnage per acre, its also about results. The fundraising that changes the life of a family, where a nurse paid for by those sun flower donations can ease the time for a family as they say goodbye to their loved one. Sunflowers are in their prime in mid summer. I once was photographed beside a sunflower taller than myself! Yes a sunflower over two metres high!
Harvest Thanksgiving! It’s not just about crops, the majority of us here in Ballyroan this morning aren’t farmers, maybe we are even poor gardeners, but harvest thanksgiving is about coming home and knowing where home is. Home to family, where the welcome is never outlasted. In the next couple of hours Pope Leo will canonise Blessed Carlo Acutis alongside Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. They are two men who knew the harvest that home brings very well. It will be the second time in history that a mother will see one of her children canonised. Antonia Salzano Acutis will be in St. Peter’s Square to attend this mornings ceremony. The only other mother to attend the canonisation of one of children was Assunta Goretti who attended her daughter Maria Goretti’s canonisation on June 24th, 1950. Carlo was 15 when he died; Maria was 11! Carlo will be one saint we have photographs of, in his jeans and polo shirts. Carlo and Pier are relatable to all of us.
Harvest Thanksgiving! Boys and girls, hands up 15 year olds! Hands up 11 year olds! You don’t have to become saints, but you do, all of us, have to carry our cross, whatever it is. Let’s today smile more, complain less and together we will in our families yield the best harvest, like our friends Carlo and Pier.
Harvest Thanksgiving! Harvest is more than bringing the barley, the oats, the potatoes, the carrots home, it’s coming home.
[1] Lk.14:26
[2] Brown, Raymond, ‘The Jerome Biblical Commentary’, 1968, pg. 148.
