THE
P RTAL
September 2018
Page 22
Cream of the Crop
Julia Beacroft
A s a
young child, my reading, writing and verbal language skills were good. However, I had an
unfortunate habit of mispronouncing some words and quite often these were names. My family hooted
with laughter when I tried to say the name ‘MacLeod’ pronouncing it phonetically (Mac-lee-od), instead of
saying Mac-Cloud, and of course the same occurred with the name ‘Cholmondeley’, (how on earth could
this be Chumley, I wondered?) And it wasn’t always just a case of a simple verbal blunder either. It was not
unknown for me to also misinterpret the sense of a sentence…
Harvest home
As summer ends and autumn appears on the
horizon, I am reminded of the beautiful Christian
harvest hymn ‘Come ye thankful people come’, which I
used to sing at primary school each harvest-time. But
you probably won’t be surprised to hear that although
I loved this hymn, I was always puzzled by the second
line of the first verse: ‘Raise the song of harvest home’.
ultimately our time of harvested maturity will come at
the end of our earthly lives, and we will be gathered in
by the Lord to be in his own wonderful presence.
Plentiful
Jesus was, of course, fond of using analogies which
referred to the land, food and wine in his parables, to
enable his disciples and followers to understand more
clearly his teaching and preaching, and in so doing he
What, I used to wonder, is a harvest-home? What frequently referred to the harvest.
sorts of people live in one and what does it look like?!
And of course, this phrase is also repeated throughout
In St Luke’s Gospel, Jesus sends out his disciples
the hymn. It was quite a few years later before I realised in pairs and he told them, “The harvest is plentiful,
that the line, of course, refers to the safe gathering in of but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest,
the harvest from the land.
therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’
We too are invited to share in the rich and plentiful
When the rest of these lovely verses are read, it quickly harvest of God and also to labour to ensure that others
becomes apparent that there is so much more to be are aware of the Lord’s call.
garnered than the harvested crops, important though
this is. We too are gathered in to the Lord as we are
And so this autumn, may we raise the song of
nurtured and as we grow both in our life and our faith harvest home with no fear of misinterpretation or
journeys. And incredibly this is only the beginning, as mispronunciation as we acclaim ‘Jesus is Lord!’
Letter to the Editor
From David Bradshaw
I am not a member of the Ordinariate, but enjoy
reading your publication every month. Do keep up
the good work.
At the Catholic church I attend, I have heard some
criticism of the Ordinariate to the effect that it is a
bunch of conservative Christians who have fled the
enlightened and modern Anglican Communion, and
intend to drag the post Vatican II church back to the
dark days.
Over time, I have pondered these remarks, and
was prompted to write after listening to a homily
on Sunday. The homilist referred to the Blessed
Sacrament as “bread and wine”, and the mass as a
memorial of the last supper. In explaining the passage
in John 6 set for the Gospel passage that day, there
was no mention of the sacrifice of the mass. No
mention of the cross.
This encouragement of what one may call “Catholic
Lite” is commonplace these days. If the criticism of
the Ordinariate is correct, then I for one, welcome
you. It is about time the full faith was declared in our
churches.
David Bradshaw
By e-mail
(Address supplied)
The views expressed in these letters are not necessarily those of the Editors
Letters for publication should be sent to:
The Editors, T he P ortal , 56 Woodlands Farm Road,
Birmingham B24 0PG
[email protected]