“We received from His generosity…” – A harvest blessing was held in the Bosnyák tér church in Budapest | Hungarian Courier
I’ve seen a few harvest blessings in church during my life, but I’ve never seen so many vegetables and fruits around the altar. everything is beautifully arranged, as if it had only been created by professional decorators and designers. Onions, pumpkins, tomatoes, grapes, peaches, aubergines, heads of cabbage, beets and, of course, scattered flowers were decorated among different colored silk scarves and snow-white damask tablecloths, loosely planted in baskets. The arrangement is light and generous, but as they say, “there is a system in it”.
“I brought all this from the market,” Béla Bárány, parish priest of the St. Anthony of Padua Church in Budapest-Zugló, points to the altar in front of you. “Where did the idea come from? How long has this been a habit here? Whose idea was it to have so many crops?” I ask Father Béla.
“Since 2008, I have introduced this form of harvest blessing in the parish, since every year the directory, which gives us the instructions and directives on how to celebrate Sundays, weekdays and holidays, stipulates that there should be a harvest thanksgiving ceremony on the first Sunday of October. In such cases, you can always give thanks for the crops of the given year – otherwise it is not obligatory -, bless them and thank the Lord God.
I thought that everything should be given the right shape, continues the parish priest. – We could also have put two baskets in front of the altar, with some fruit and vegetables, and that’s it, but the dimensions of the church and the size of the sanctuary here require more. Since my colleagues also like beauty, we started thinking about how this could be done.
The most beautiful things must be brought to the church, the best things must be prepared according to our knowledge.
Whoever comes to Mass, let him touch the beauty;
and beauty, goodness and truth always bring you closer to God. This is where the idea came from, together with the religious teachers, one or two mothers, and the three of us, fathers [a templomban két káplán is szolgál: Fehér Zoltán és Kiss Géza Imre – a szerk.] let’s create this »vegetable-fruit-exhibition« in front of the altar.
We have prepared the crops and fruits of the earth for blessing. This is no accident, since the bread and wine are the sacraments in every Mass. This will become the body and blood of Christ. so
material, food is also used by God to convey his grace.
The offering prayer also refers to it, we say: we thank God that we received the bread from His generosity, we offer it as the fruit of the earth and the fruit of human labor – and this Sunday, like all over the world, we give thanks.
I tried to bring in this old custom, which was natural in the village where I grew up. But here, in the city, it’s a bit more difficult, but there is a big market right next to the church where I have good ones, since I’ve been shopping for thirty-three years. This is how easy it is to purchase and organize, and this is how this beautiful choreography was created.”
In the meantime, the faithful gather, the boy and girl scouts take their seats on the benches. In the sacristy, there is more and more bustle, preparation, this day is unusual.
“Who was there to help with the purchase of the crops, bringing them home and arranging them?” I asked Father Béla further. “A religious teacher, her husband, then a father, and the three of us are parish priests. The four of us packed that one maza crop. Of course, this is not a small amount of money, since we know what the prices are…
We do all this not only to make it look good, but also because at the end we distribute the crops.
The blessed vegetables and fruits are bagged and the ministers distribute them to the faithful. This is how we encourage people to give thanks.
If we pray before and after eating, we invoke God’s blessing on the food and drink, thanking us for the fact that what we receive every day is not something that comes naturally. God gave the produce of the earth, and someone prepared it. The blessing ceremony is performed at the beginning of the Mass, right after the greeting, and then the Holy Mass continues with the glorification.”
At the end of the liturgy, in the church, where everything is in one huge space, since the three ships are only symbolic, the apparently fresh vegetables and fruits began to be distributed. The faithful came in two rows to the altar table, where the scouts and ministers distributed the portioned crops. Father Béla did well to buy a lot, and that’s how it was for everyone who stood in line to buy it.
There was not much time to look around this extraordinary church, which was built in the 1940s in the name of modern art perception. The interior design of the building was done after the 1949 nationalization.
The murals of the sanctuary were painted by Béla Kontuly with scenes from the life of Saint Anthony of Padua between 1959 and 1961. The stations are also special: scenes carved out of stone bring to life the story of Christ’s suffering.
We could write more about this Still Great Building, maybe we’ll come back to it another time. Now we say goodbye to the church and this special, uplifting nine o’clock mass.
Author: Ákos Mészáros
Photo: Zita Merényi
Hungarian Courier