August 1st is a date that has multiple celebrations in the history of our faith. In modern history, it is celebrated as the memorial of St. Alphonsus Ligouri. While still celebrated in some places, it is remembered as the feast of St. Peter in the Chains, which if my reading is accurate, began with the dedication of a church by the same name that houses the relics of the chains that held St. Peter in the book of Acts. This day has also be celebrated as a First Fruits celebration, marking the beginning of the harvest season, and throughout the middle ages and even into more recent history, has been referred to “Lammas Day.” “Lammas” is the Old English for “Loaf Mass.”

Some rites of the church still celebrate this feast, though it has largely fallen out of practice with changes of the liturgical calendar. The Anglican church actually still celebrates many of the old feasts of the calendar, and often, that is where I have been able to find more information about some of these feasts.

This idea of celebrating the first-fruits is an ancient one, and the Israelites themselves celebrated various harvest festivals, including their own “First Fruits,” though it lands at a different time of the year. Lammas Day developed as a replacement to the practice of offering up thanksgiving to pagan gods for the harvest of wheat. One such group to celebrate this harvest were the Celts. The Catholic Church baptized this tradition, as the idea of giving thanks for the harvest of wheat, is in itself, a good practice, when directed to the True God. All the fruits of the earth are gifts from God, but wheat and grapes have the special privilege of bringing us the Eucharist.

Throughout the liturgical calendar, there are multiple days on which we recognize the importance of wheat in the celebration of our faith (and likewise, grapes), but Lammas day bears a unique and beautiful practice. Some of the wheat is harvested, and a loaf (or loaves) of bread are made with that wheat and presented at (or before or after) Mass to be blessed, often alongside a sheave of wheat. In some places, the bread brought forth is even used for the Eucharist.

This year, our family observed this old celebration, and I have to say that it really brought a lot of depth and meaning to the work of the harvest. When I harvested some wheat by hand for the first time a few years ago, it was startling to realize just how poor Ruth and Naomi must have been, and those of the other gleaners, for people to glean in the fields. Every grain is precious. A whole missed head of grain is a treasure. It brought new understanding to the story of Jesus and the disciples and the plucking of heads of grain on the sabbath. To see the struggles against the weeds and what it means for seed to fall on good soil. The importance of good soil… Grain is talked about often in Scripture! Our ability to understand these stories is hampered by a world of convenience. Taking a step back and reconnecting with history brings new life and meaning to the work that is meant to nourish our bodies. Now it nourishes our souls, too.

In Christ,
Danielle