Someone in a Facebook broup I follow asked whether anyone had anything to say about Lammas Day, which is a commemoration in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, so I thought I would pot a link to what I had assumed I had written in this blog. Duh. I had skipped these two. So, like feasts born out of time, I am writing about them now.
Candlemass, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, corresponds to the old celtic celebration of Imbolc, the beginning of spring. Light is just beginning to return to the world. In the church year, it is a time for blesing of candles, of little lights, and Jesus is recognized as the light of the world by Anna and Simeon. Simeon makes this clear in the canticle which has come to be the night-time prayer of the church, the Nunc Dimmitis:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word,
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou has prepared before the face of all people,
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Six months later on the old celtic and british calendar comes Lamma, the feast of the harvest, a feast also known as Lughnasadh, celebrating the god of the sun, Lugh. It is high summer. The church celebrates this time as the full revelation of the light of Christ the Sun of Righteousness, as Isaiah says,, to three of his closest disciples, with the roles of Ann and Simeon taken, so to speak, by Moses, and Elijah. Once again, it is, in the words of Simeon, 'according to thy word'--Moses and Elijah being the law and the prophets.
These feasts also show how the coming of Christ fulfills not just the prophecies given to the people of Isael, but as the fulfillment of the prophecies given to even the nations who are also looking for an understanding of the holy.
Lamas, is particularly interesting because it is celebrated with a loaf of bread. Once again, Jesus is the fulfillment not just of the prophetic manna in the wilderness but of all human hunger. He is the first fruits of all creation. He is he true bread, which comes down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will never hunger.
