The Ember Days were prescribed for the entire Latin Church by Pope Gregory VII around 1085 and were a fixture of Catholic life for many centuries thereafter. So they are not only mini-Lents but also mini-Groundhog Days!
There is a handy mnemonic device for remembering these: “Lenty, Penty, Crucy, Lucy.” Furthermore, folklore holds that the weather during the Ember Days foretells the weather for the next three months. 14 Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross In each season, they occur as follows:įall - after the Sept. Traditionally, there are four sets of Ember Days, each consisting of a successive Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Christians adapted these various traditions into the Ember Days, also called Rogation Days. The ancient Romans observed a lot of agricultural feasts, especially at seed time and harvest. The Book of Zechariah describes the Jewish practice of fasting four times a year. The roots of the Ember Days go back to the Old Testament. The purpose of the Ember Days is to thank God for the gifts of nature and to pray for the good use of those gifts. I only learned about them recently, but older Catholics may recall these quarterly “mini-Lents” - special days of prayer and fasting to mark the four seasons of the year.
