Lammas, also known as Loaf Mass Day, is a Christian holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere on 1 August. The name originates from the word "loaf" in reference to bread and "Mass" in reference to the Eucharist. It is a festival in the liturgical calendar to mark the blessing of the First Fruits of harvest, with a loaf of bread being brought to the church for this purpose. Lammastide falls at the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. Christians also have church processions to bakeries, where those working therein are blessed by Christian clergy.
On Loaf Mass Day, bread is brought into the parish church to be blessed by a Christian cleric.
Exeter's Lammas Fair glove in 2015
Mass is the main Eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity. The term Mass is commonly used in the Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, and Independent Catholicism. The term is also used in some Lutheran churches, as well as in some Anglican churches, and on rare occasion by other Protestant churches.
Painting of a 15th-century Mass
A priest offering the Mass at St Mary's Basilica, Bangalore
The elevation of the host began in the 14th century to show people the consecrated host.
A priest administers Communion during Mass in a Dutch field on the front line in October 1944.
