SAINT LUKE'S

Friends,

​

Today - August 1 - is a very ecumenical day, in our Church calendar. "Lammas Day", from the Old English, "hlāfmæsse" meaning "Loaf Mass", it was a kind of first-fruits festival for Anglo-Saxon Christians, when people would bake their first loaves of bread from the freshly harvested grain of the new year, and they would bring these loaves to Church to be blessed, shared, and eaten with thanksgiving. What a wonderful and tangible reminder of our dependence on God's good earth. What a way to make ourselves sensitive to those who do not know where their next meal will come from. 

The reason I say this is ecumenical is because, on the one hand, some neopagans have adopted the same name and date for a harvest celebration of theirs. On the other hand, August 1 is also the day we remember the Maccabean martyrs. The apocryphal Books of the Maccabees tells about a time of persecution of Jews who lived under Roman rule, during the intertestamental period. The Maccabees were members of a family who led a resistance to this persecution by refusing to reject their religion and adopt the Hellenic religion of their overlords. At one point, the Romans attacked the Jews on a Sabbath Day, in full knowledge that they would not defend themselves without breaking the Torah. The mother of the Maccabean brothers who died in that massacre offered a prayer which clearly demonstrates how there was pre-Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead. 

This Sunday, may we offer our first-fruits to the Lord with thanksgiving and hope: may we live with thanksgiving for all God has given us to share (Remember that we can always bring a food item for the Blessing Box!); and may we live with uncompromising hope in God's justice which will right every wrong. 

In Christ,

Father Draper