​On Sunday 1st October, we celebrated our Harvest Festival with non-perishable food items placed in front of the altar, afterwards these items were donated to the foodbank. Joining our Mass of celebration was deacons from Devon & Cornwall including our own deacon, Peter Skoyles. Our ploughman’s lunch after Mass collected £110:00 for St Petrocs to help keep them in their work, caring for the homeless in Cornwall.

Continuing with our harvest theme, on Saturday 28th October Fr. Gilmour joined Brian Oldham and the Liskeard Old Cornwall Society in Liskeard Cattle Market for ‘Crying the Neck’ This is the Cornish Festival – a pagan religious celebration to welcome the Harvest at the end of summer recalling the last cutting of the sheaf and honouring the harvest so next years crop will be a good one. The neck is never held aloft to the West as this might bring a poor harvest next year.

Crying the Neck has its roots as the Celtic Festival of ‘Samhain’ welcoming the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costume to ward off ghosts.

The Introduction was given by Brian Oldham; Opening Prayer in Cornish by Rod Sheaff; Opening Prayer in English by Fr. Gilmour; Reading in English by Fr. Gilmour; The neck is then raised aloft to the North, East and the South; The Lord’s Prayer in Cornish by Rod Sheaff; The Lord’s Prayer in English by all present; Blessing by Fr. Gilmour; and all sing ‘Trelawny’.

The Cornish Anthem ‘Trelawny’ is nowhere near as ancient and refers to the Cornish Bishop Trelawny who spoke out against James II and was imprisoned during the time of the ‘Great Political Unrest’ in 1688. Bishop Jonathan Trelawny is buried in the small church in Pelynt between Looe and Polperro – not far from Sclerder Abbey – in fact it was Trelawny’s descendants that built Sclerder Abbey. Bishop Trelawny’s Crosier hangs above his tomb in the church at Pelynt.

​For the Bethany Group meeting in October, several ladies from the group visited the Anglican Church of St Wenna, Morval {between Liskeard & Looe} to see the flower and craft festival themed ‘Community Life’. One of our parishioners and Bethany Group member did a floral display representing unity of all people, all Christian communities plus other faiths and no faith. Four small arrangements represented our four Catholic Churches {Liskeard, Saltash, Torpoint and Sclerder} around a large arrangement. This proved very popular, and several members returned over the few days it was on to see it again. Also, others from our church in Liskeard who had not been able to go on the Thursday afternoon the group went visited St Wenna. St Wenna is a beautiful little church down a country lane in the middle of nowhere. This allows the church to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The church warden explained how it was important to keep the church open and St Wenna was not going to be the sixth church closed; when a young mother had lost her baby and wanted to find a church to pray and sit quietly for an hour. She had tried 5 churches, and all were closed St Wenna was the last one she tried and found it open. How long the grief-stricken mother stayed in the church she did not know it could have been minutes or hours, but words could not express the relief and spiritual assistance she gained from visiting the church.