There are prayers, food, decorations and activities that can easily be incorporated by your family. I have written about this several times, so I won’t belabor the point. But that doesn’t mean that Ember Days can’t be observed in small ways in our domestic churches. The public practice of Ember Days within the diocese or parish is dependent on the local Ordinary, so there are many locations that do not observe Ember Days at all. The changes corresponded to following the Divine Office or Breviary. John XXIII, the rules for establishing the dates for Ember Days changed, and connected the Ember Days to follow the Third Sunday of September, which will be September 21, 23 and 24, 2015. This year (2015) the Ember Days do not fall this week right after the Feast of the Holy Cross, but the next week. The Church recognized the pattern of change of seasons and bringing in the harvest man needs to give thanks and renew our hearts. The Ember Days in September are outside the main liturgical seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter) and are closest to the Fall Equinox. The September Ember Days were one of the first Ember Days established, and they are the most prominent of the quarterly days. The Ember Days were a time dedicated to continuing that petition to help us with our needs, especially with harvests, but also stressing on giving gratitude to God for His generous gifts. While Liturgy always has the balance of the four forms of prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication, our personal prayers tend to lean heavily on the petition form. The gift of nature is from God, and man is not and can never be in control of it. Returning to our agricultural roots brings true humility in remembering man’s role on earth as being completely beholden to God. The agrarian connection also recognized that while man could work the land, he can never control the elements. Not everyone lived in rural locations, but there was a recognition of that connection of the land to our life. Before man become so civilized, weather, crops, farm animals and the change of seasons were a part of daily life for everyone. The Liturgy has reflects this connection with nature and God. The Church recognizes our dependency on God for His gifts of nature. Ember Days may look a bit different than pre-Vatican II (but even before 1962 Maria von Trapp was bemoaning how they were different and disappearing in her contemporary 1955 America), but the Ember Days are still a part of the Church’s living tradition.Įmber Days are part of the agrarian heritage of our Faith. There is an unbroken continuum within the Church’s Liturgy. Ember Days are still a part of the Church’s tradition. Practicing Ember Days is not intended to be a backward-looking movement or living in the past. Although not required, the traditional fasting and abstaining of these days are an external expression of turning our hearts and focusing back to God. But naturally the change of seasons seem to tug and encourage us for renewal and change (spring and fall cleaning, anyone?). Both seasons are a time for change of heart and renewal. In addition, the Church provides us two seasons of preparation, Advent and Lent. Ember Days are a quarterly observance the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of one week of each season that “the Church is accustomed to entreat the Lord for the various needs of humanity, especially for the fruits of the earth and for human labor, and to give thanks to him publicly.” ( Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 45). Once again, I turn to the Church’s Ember Days as an aid to looking at nature and the change of seasons and recognizing them all as a gift from God.
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