Harvest Thanksgiving/Thanksgiving Day

Through the ages, many peoples, cultures and religions have observed feasts and prayers of thanksgiving for harvests. The Jewish spring festivals of Passover and Weeks (Pentecost) were in part celebrations of spring harvests, and the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles was related to the autumn harvest (these festivals were also related to historical events).  In medieval and early modern Europe, including England, there were various local occasions when thanks were offered, and over time, local forms of prayer for autumn harvest festivals developed. 

In colonial North America, English explorers and colonists gave thanks in many places that later became the US and Canada. The London Company ordered settlers bound for Berkeley Hundred in Virginia to offer thanksgiving upon arrival and annually thereafter. Thus, on December 4, 1619, the first official English-speaking Thanksgiving service was held at Berkley Hundred. Almost two years later, the Separatists at Plymouth in Massachusetts had prayers and feasting. Of course, the case in Massachusetts in 1621 was dramatic, and it was later publicized by New Englanders. At the time of US Independence, this New England practice was promoted by the Continental Congress. A few years later, the 1789 American Book of Common Prayer included a Thanksgiving Day Office, and parts of this office are still reflected in the 1928 BCP.  The 1962 Canadian BCP also included forms for harvest thanksgiving based on English and Canadian practice.

 It is a normal part of Christian worship to give God thanks for all things. It is also appropriate that we should pause in autumn to give special thanks for the products of the land which sustain and enrich life. As a German hymn based on the Te Deum says, "Now thank we all our God..." 

The 1928 Collect for Thanksgiving Day reads: O most merciful Father, who hast blessed the labours of the husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth; We give thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching thee to continue thy loving-kindness to us, that our land may still yield her increase, to thy glory and our comfort; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.