As we walk through these September days, we find ourselves witnesses to creation’s grand finale of the growing season. The trees around us burst with amber and gold, their branches heavy with the year’s abundance. In our gardens, the last tomatoes ripen on the vine, and the apple orchards beckon with their sweet burden. This is the season of harvest, when we gather the fruits of months of patient tending. Yet as we fill our baskets and our pantries, we are called to look deeper – to see in autumn’s bounty a mirror of our own spiritual journey and the harvest that prayer has worked within our hearts.
The saints of Carmel have long understood that the soul, like the earth, has its seasons of planting, growing, and gathering. St Teresa of Ávila often spoke of the soul as a garden, one that requires both our faithful tending and God’s gentle rain. As she reminds us in The Interior Castle, “His Majesty asks of us only two things: love of His Majesty and love of our neighbour.” These two loves, planted in the soil of our hearts through prayer and watered by grace, yield a harvest more precious and more abundant than any earthly fruit. Is not this reflected in the natural world as well? Each seed that was planted in spring contained within itself not just the potential for a single plant, but for countless seeds in return. The farmer who planted one grain of wheat may harvest a hundred. So too with us; each moment we spend in contemplation, each little act of love, plants seeds that multiply beyond our understanding. What begins as a simple turning toward God in the quiet of our hearts grows into a transformed way of being in the world.
Thus, the external season becomes a sacrament of the internal one. As we admire the vibrant reds and golds of the changing leaves, we can reflect on the ways God has coloured our own character with the hues of patience and resilience. As we feel the crispness in the air that invites us to draw inward, we are called to a similar quietness in prayer, to a “harvest of silence” where we can finally hear the gentle voice of the Divine Gardener. This is the heart of Carmelite contemplation: to withdraw into the “inner cell” of our being, to be alone with the Alone, and there to gather the fruits of our daily encounters with God. It is in this silence that we can sift through the yield of our days and weeks. Let us, then, approach these autumn days with hearts full of gratitude and eyes wide open to wonder. In every apple gathered, in every grain harvested, in every flower that has completed its cycle, we see the faithful love of our Creator at work. And in our own hearts, tended by prayer and watered by grace, we discover that we too are part of this great harvest, gathered into God’s love, transformed by God’s mercy, and sent forth to share the abundance of grace that has been planted, grown, and gathered within us.
Lord of the harvest,
As the beauty of autumn unfolds and the fruits of the earth gather in abundance,
We come before you, grateful for the patient growth you bring both to the land and to our hearts.
You, who led Elijah to listen for your voice in quiet winds upon Mount Carmel,
Help us receive this season’s gifts with wonder, simplicity, and joy.
Teach us, as St Teresa of Ávila taught, to tend the garden of our souls in prayer,
Trusting that your grace deepens unseen roots even in the silent, wintering places within.
Give us courage, like St John of the Cross, to let go of what no longer gives life,
So we may welcome the harvest you desire—the fruit of charity, humility, and peace.
May we walk into the richness of autumn trusting in your providence,
Open to your transforming love, and united with the world in praise and thanksgiving.
Amen.