In a world where we think of work as being a Monday to Friday affair, where food comes from a shop, and where ‘work’ and ‘religion’ belong in separate compartments, a festival like ‘Plough Sunday’ may seem but a curiosity! Plough Sunday (originally Plough Monday) is a feast going back to Anglo-Saxon times. Christmas Day was followed by the 12 days of Christmas, which ended on 6 January with the feast of the Epiphany: the next day work began afresh wit a new year of ploughing. The invoke God’s blessing on this activity which was a key to survival, the ploughs were brought to be blessed at the parish church. This is still done today in some rural parishes in Nottingham and reminds all of where our food comes from, the links between work and faith, and the need to be thankful to God.
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