by Bennette Roach :
Fr. George Agger Roman Catholic parish priest in Montserrat said it would be historic when the parish in Montserrat celebrates on Sunday, November 3, 2013 a harvest festival.
Beginning at the usual 9.15 a.m. Sunday Mass at Lookout, joint with St. Martin de Pores for the occasion, the first harvest for the Roman Catholic church in Montserrat took place where parishioners brought food products and food grown and harvested on island and decorated the church with these strewn over the foyer and with the church.
Harvest hymns and songs, incense and blessing with holy water throughout the mass, celebrated with additional accompanying steel band music provided by the Genysis steel orchestra.
Earlier reports said that although other denominations on island observe this popular event annually the Catholic Church community here has never followed suit until now.
Father George addressing the historic occasion, said that harvest celebrations are not new within the Catholic Church throughout the world but, “it is not the most common of festivities.”
On Sunday he said, “I think it is an appropriate occasion to remind ourselves that we must give God thanks…not because the other churches are doing it, thank God they are, but because here in Montserrat we are very conscious of the fruits of the earth…,” as he noted that the readings for the Mass were taken from the first and last books of the Bible.
He explains that although it started in England, as he recalls knowing about in his own country in Ireland, it comes the end of the Harvest Season. “…traditionally in Europe in the Early Century the people would gather and give God thanks at the end of the year.”
This is something we haven’t done as a local church and even at the worldwide Catholic Church. We don’t do it very often, “but I just thought it was something beautiful and the other thing that connects it with giving God thanks, is that people sharing their gifts, their talents, their craft and putting that at the service of those in need of the community,” he said.
He concluded: “For our Harvest Festival Sunday, any funds raised from the gifts etc., will be given to the St. Vicent de Paul Society, who will share it among the poor and the elderly of our community. That is like sharing the gifts of God given to us, sharing them with those who need them more than we have them.”
