Harvest Thanksgiving 2025

Today our community gathered with grateful hearts to celebrate our annual Harvest Thanksgiving Mass. Before the altar, baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables — the work of the soil and the labour of many hands — were presented as signs of God’s abundant goodness.

As the psalmist proclaims: “You crown the year with your goodness; abundance flows in your steps” (Psalm 64). In these simple offerings, we recognise the Lord’s  generosity and our call to care for the earth that sustains us. We also recall the words of our Cistercian Constitutions, which urge us to care for what we have been given, and to live by St Benedict’s exhortation to live ‘by the labour of our hands,’ so that all things may be rightly ordered to the glory of God.

Our Cistercian founders, most notably St Alberic, have been remembered as ‘lovers of the place.’ This heritage is a reminder that our lives, like the harvest, are gifts received and gifts to be shared. This thanksgiving Mass connects us to the rhythm of the seasons, and draws us deeper into the Eucharist — the great thanksgiving in which all creation finds its fulfilment.

At Glencairn, the harvest celebration is rooted in our tradition of simplicity and gratitude. As the leaves turn and the fields yield their crops, we give thanks, remembering that “the earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us” (Psalm 6).