Fr William Rock of the FSSP often writes insightful articles online on their website about liturgical and other matters.
Today he has a very interesting account of the origins and development of the tradition of blessing grapes on the feast of the Transfiguration. He shows how it was interpreted in spiritual terms by William Durandus at the end of the thirteenth century, but that its origin actually was over a thousand years earlier in the pontificate of St Sixtus II in the early third century. That rite has, it seems to me, similarities to the four seasonal ember days as a thanksgiving for the harvest of seasonal crops. From Rome it appears to have spread east into what became the world of Orthodox Christianity and merged with local traditions there.
The article brings out the antiquity of the custom, and the stability of the liturgical texts.
It is also worth noting that it was not until after 1456 that the Transfiguration came to be universally observed on August 6th. That was the day on which news of the Ottoman retreat from the siege of Belgrade on July 22nd reached Rome, and Pope Calixtus III ordered that henceforth August 6th would be the universal celebration of the Transfiguration in thanksgiving.
Pope Callixtus III
Image: Wikipedia
Fr Rock’s erudite article can be read at Blessing of Grapes
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