First Fruits

According to what I think of as "the Celtic* reckoning", August is not so much the last month of summer as the first month of autumn. Either way though, it's a harvest month. It began with Lammas, and today in the Sarum Missal we have a special blessing for grapes. 

Benedic, Dómine, et hos fructus novos uvæ, quos tu, Dómine, rore cœli, et inundatione pluviárum et temporum serenitate atque tranquillitate ad maturitatem perducere dignatus es, et dedisti eos ad usus nostros, cum gratiarum actione percipere. In nomine Domini nostri + Jesu Christi per quem omnia, Domine, semper bona creas. Qui tecum.

Two thoughts occur. Firstly, the blessing itself is significantly older than today's feast of the Transfiguration, which as Duffy points out is one of several modern feasts that were only introduced into the western liturgy in the fifteenth century - the others being the Visitation (2nd July) and tomorrow's great feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.

And secondly, of course, mediaeval England was a warmer, naturally more prosperous country than she has become. Before the age of machines and the mini ice ages of more modern times, England was indeed a land of sunshine and wine.

In Merry England, "first fruits" festivities are already well underway.

*More abstract and logical than the Anglo-Saxon, naturally!