Planting and harvest festivals would not have arisen until after the Fall when, as a punishment, man was sentenced to work the land for his sustenance (Gen 3:17-19). It is worth noting here that the Hebrew word translated as “seasons” can also mean “feasts.” 1īased on what has just been discussed and the requirements of the Natural Law for Divine Worship, it is the contention of this article that, in Eden, the worship of the Creator would have had an astronomical component. With this knowledge, one may dare to say that the celebrating of the transitions of the natural seasons belongs most properly and rightly to those who worship the Creator, the True God, the Thrice Holy Trinity, rather than to the pagans. According to the Book of Genesis, on the Fourth Day, “God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:” (Gen 1:14). In fact, God intends that the heavenly bodies be used by man in such a way. Marking the seasons is not distinctly pagan, or distinctly Catholic for that matter, but is simply human, part of the shared human experience. A Catholic lives in this created material world just as much as a pagan does, and both have to live in and by its cycles. That the Latin Church in her liturgical traditions observes, in a way, the transition between the seasons should not be seen as odd or, even worse, pagan. God Creating the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars As part of the keeping of the Ember Days, seafood tempura is suggested – a Japanese food which, according to pious tradition, takes its name from the Latin name for the Ember Days, Quatuor Anni Tempora. Even if one cannot keep them as days of fasting and abstinence, the reader is encouraged to do some form of penance on these three days and to keep them with the same spirit and intentions as our Catholic forefathers – in thanksgiving for the blessings of the previous season, to ask God’s blessing for the upcoming one, and to pray for the clergy, particularly for those studying for the Priesthood. While there is no current canonical obligation to keep the upcoming Ember Days as days of penance, the reader is invited voluntarily to do so. The practice of having ordinations on Ember Saturdays is still reflected in the Masses for the Ember Saturdays and the ordination rites themselves.
The Ember Days were also seen as days of prayer for those who were to be ordained, as ordinations were historically held on the Ember Saturdays. Ember Friday, because it is a Friday, would have been a day of fasting and total abstinence, so no meat at all. The two little meals, when added together, were not to equal a whole meal.
Fall ember days 20147 full#
In 1962, Ember Wednesday and Saturday were days of fasting and partial abstinence – that is, one could take only one full meal and two little meals and meat only at the main meal. Historically, the Ember Days were days of penance observed to give thanks to God for His blessings in the previous season and to ask for His blessings for the upcoming one. This year, the Autumn Equinox – when day and night are equal length and which astronomically marks the start of autumn, thus the end of summer, in the Northern Hemisphere – occurs this Wednesday, September 22nd, Ember Wednesday. The Ember Days are four sets of three days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) which occur around the transitions of the natural seasons – winter, spring, summer, and autumn. William Rock, FSSP Abel Grimmer’s Autumn (1607)Īccording to the 1962 Liturgical Calendar of the Roman Rite, this Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday are Ember Days. September Embertide and the Christianizing of Edenīy Fr.
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