One day of fasting with complete abstinence on FridayĪ third day of fasting with partial abstinence on Ember Saturday One day of fasting with partial abstinence on Wednesday The minimal guidelines, as of the 1962 norms, is: I encourage people all the time: if you are not already in a habit of fasting throughout the year, try fasting during Ember Days. If the purpose of Ember Days is a mini spiritual retreat to unify our spiritual intentions with those of priests and seminarians, then what should that retreat look like? Summer: starts the Wednesday of the week after Pentecost Sundayįall: starts the Wednesday after Holy Cross Day/The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14) Spring: starts the first Wednesday of Lent that isn’t Ash Wednesday Winter: starts the Wednesday after the Feast of St. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Ember" is a corruption of the Latin phrase Quatuor Tempora, which simply means "four times". How to celebrate ember days like our catholic ancestorsīefore we go further, let’s make sure we’ve got the timing right.Įmber Days are a Wednesday, a Friday, and a Saturday set aside four times per year during each season of the year. Since ordinations were historically preceded by several days of fasting and prayer on the part of the candidates, this provided an opportunity for the faithful to unite their intentions with the future priests in a kind of seasonal spiritual retreat.īut how do we celebrate Ember Days today, at home, at work, and at Church? In 494, Pope Gelasius I added weight to the celebration of Ember Days when he prescribed that the sacrament of Holy Orders should be conferred on Ember Saturdays. This change seems to have been motivated by the fact that the year contains four natural seasons, and also by the mention of four fasting periods in the Book of Zechariah (8:19). Eventually, the Church added a fourth prayer period (in March). The first regulations mention only “Three Seasons”. Since 1966, the fasting and abstinence are no longer prescribed but still encouraged.”Įmber Days seem to have originated in the early Church as an attempt to Christianize pagan seasonal celebrations of nature that fall during early Summer ( Feriae sementivae: Feast of Sowing), late Summer ( Feriae messis: Harvest Feast), and late Fall ( Feriae vindimiales: Feast of Wine). Tied to the seasonal cycles of farming and harvesting, the purpose of Ember Days is to render thanks to God for the gifts of Creation and to ask His help in using them well. “Ember Days are three days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) set apart in each of the four seasons for fasting, abstinence and prayer. In his excellent 2019 article “Ember Days of Lent”¹, Father Arnaud Devillers explains Ember Days: Like other pontifical-right groups formed by a pope with the specific charism to offer the sacraments according to the Roman Rite as it existed before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council, the FSSP has unique insight into the feasts of the old calendar. If you’re an Ember Days veteran, this article will help you go deeper if you’re new to Ember Days (the group of three days is collectively called “Embertide”), let’s stoke those embers a bit and see if we can get a flame.įor some background, we’ll ask the group of Catholic priests formed by Saint Pope John Paul II known as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Liturgical debates aside, the Church offers us an amazing opportunity to reconnect with a beautiful-and very meaningful-ancestral tradition smack dab in the middle of each of the four seasons of the year. We all grew up in the post-Vatican II Church and, in the post-Vatican II Church, Ember Days don’t exist. If this is your first time hearing about the Church’s seasonal three days of fasting and almsgiving, that’s par for the course. Here’s how to celebrate Ember Days like your Catholic ancestors. One of the most spiritually potent times of the Catholic liturgical year, they were nearly forgotten after the 1960s.
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