The Season of Loaves

a devotional for summer

Photo by Evi Radauscher on Unsplash

Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

On last week’s discussion thread, all about the things we prefer to buy handmade or make ourselves, Michelle Rollins wrote:

“As for things that I make, I've always been a tactile and resourceful person. Some recent loves are hand stitching linen clothes, knitting with soft wool, and kneading sourdough. I love feeling the things that people have touched for millenia before me. It connects me to that heritage and makes their lives more real to me.”

Love this, Michelle! I, too, have a weakness for objects with provenance!

If you want to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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the oven, an altar
to the goodness
of wheat

and the strength
of yeast

and the savor
of salt;

the oven, a crucible
where faith is refined
and lifted,

an aroma
unmatched. 

this oven, 
this altar,
this crucible, 
is where God kneels
and reveals

the crust and crumb
of His
delicious
love. 

Welcome to August! We are now entering the season of loaves. Everywhere you turn in Christian and pre-Christian practice you find bread celebrated as a symbol of harvest, and I don’t mind saying: sign me up for holy bread!

To the ancient Celts, the harvest festival (around the first of August) was known as Lughnasadh, often Anglicized to Lúnasa. At this time, the farmers would offer the “first fruits” of their harvest to the Celtic sun-god, Lugh, out of gratitude for his shining aid throughout the agricultural year, and to appeal to him for provision through the winter.

When Christianity arrived in Ireland (a fairly peaceable takeover, all things considered), the Celts adapted the “first fruits” idea but changed the recipient. Instead, they brought loaves made with the first of the year’s grain to the church to be blessed. This day came to be known as Lammas, or “Loaf Mass”.

Today, the first of August is still a date observed by many as a time to feast, play games, and celebrate the fruit of summer as we turn the inevitable corner into eventual autumn. Though many of us are a bit removed from the finer significance of harvest festivals (most of us not being farmers), we can still open ourselves up to gratitude, recognizing every good gift that we have been given.

Because let’s be frank: harvest comes at a cost. A cost of time, resources, and attention. To harvest, we must pour out and have patience. Making and baking a loaf of bread is not an instant gratification exercise. Neither is growing a garden. Neither is cultivating a life of grace.

Today, I invite us all (myself, especially), to look hard at the table set before us. To recognize the miracle represented by our lives. And to eat hearty of the loaf, blessed by the shining face of the God Who Grows to Harvest.

Blessed Lammas and merry Lúnasa to all!

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