Lammas

Happy Lammas Day! Lammas derives from “loaf-mass,” and is a traditional day of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the harvest. With ample precedent in the Old Testament, and similar traditions likely existing in pre-Christian Britain, the first grains of the harvest would be made into a loaf or cake and brought to the Church for blessing. While some of this Lammas bread could be set aside for the Eucharist later in the liturgy, most of it was sent home to be consumed in celebration. You’ll find mention of Lammas in Shakespeare, and even in the lembas bread of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

Connections are often drawn between the Loaf-Mass on August 1st and the Transfiguration of our Lord on August 6th. In the former, many grains are gathered into one, as all humanity is gathered into one in Christ. Then in the latter, we see this common humanity exalted and deified (to use a term from the Eastern Church), even as the bread of the Eucharist becomes the true Body and Blood of the God-Man.

Lammas is traditionally a time of hand-fastings, that is, of agreements and betrothals—not, as neopagans have misinterpreted, a time for “temporary marriages.” Lammas is linked quite naturally to Harvest Home, a September festival around the autumnal equinox, which marks the close of the harvest. There were surely harvest festivals from time immemorial, but the truth is that we know next to nothing of how these were celebrated before the coming of Christianity. Claims to the contrary are rank speculation.

Note that Halloween and Thanksgiving, often mistaken for harvest festivals, are none of the sort. Legends to the contrary, the Hallowtide’s origins are fully Christian; Samhain, the supposedly pagan harvest festival falsely connected to Halloween, is first attested in the 10th Century and falls on the Harvest Moon, which is in September, not November. Thanksgiving, meanwhile, is a winter feast that evolved to allow later generations of New England Puritans to celebrate Christmas while still claiming not to celebrate Christmas. But that’s a post for another day.

In our day and age, when many of us are separated from the direct means of food production, and when globalization has made most foods available year round, it is nonetheless appropriate to set aside this time to thank God for the wonders of the harvest and the bounties of the earth. May we steward such superabundance so as to provide for those who lack secure sources of food. And may we thank the farmers, now so few amongst our population, who nonetheless provide such astonishing nourishment as seven billion people may share.

A year or so back, as I set out to celebrate Lammas at our parish, a combine had just begun reaping wheat in the field across the street from us. It seems that the old seasonal celebrations still hold true. And for that we thank the Lord of the Harvest.