The Advent Ember Days 2024

This week of the Advent Season sees us celebrating the Advent Ember days, on Wednesday (today, December 18), Friday (Dec. 20) and Saturday (Dec. 21). Advent, a penitential season, has, if you like, three days in which we ‘give it our all’ in which we, in a particular way, on particular days, ratchet up particularly our prayer and our penance in this season, and in this last week before celebrating the coming of Our Saviour at Christmas. If we have been a little “spotty” in our Advent penances these are the days to renew our sorrow for our past sins, to unite with Holy Mother Church in making reparation for the sins of the whole world, the days in which we fast and do penance.

[Ember days do not occur, of course, only in the season of Advent. For more information on Ember Days generally you might, as part of today’s penance take the opportunity to do some spiritual reading about the Ember days at the wonderful Catholic site Fish Eaters. For particular reference to the (in the Southern Hemisphere “winter” Ember days of Advent please see the further post here: Advent Embertide, both readings of which you ought to find a little time-consuming but thoroughly educative in our Catholic traditions]

That means that this week we have fast days on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (although because the Saturday is the feast of St. Thomas our Ember penances on the Saturday will be severely ameliorated this year).

The Ember days are true Catholic tradition dating actually dating back to the Apostles, (Pope Leo the Great claims they were instituted by the Apostles).

Pope Callistus (217-222) in the “Liber Pontificalis” has laws ordering all to observe a fast three times a year to counteract the hedonistic and pagan Roman rites praying for:

• a good harvest (June),

• a good vintage (September),

• a good seeding in December.

By the time of Pope Gelasius (492-496), he already writes about there being four times a years, including Spring. The Pope also permitted the conferring of priesthood and diaconate on the Saturdays of Ember week. This practice was mostly celebrated around Rome at the beginning, but even from Pope Gelasius’ time, it began to spread throughout the Church until it became common practice to only celebrate these particularly Holy Orders on Ember days - at least up until the Vatican II period where so much was then changed arbitrarily, and many of these ancient practices were lost.

St. Augustine of Canterbury brought Ember days to England and the Carolingians took the practice with them into Gaul and Germany. In the eleventh century, Spain adopted them.

It was not, however, until Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), that these Ember days were prescribed for the whole Catholic Church as days of fast and abstinence. He placed these “four mini Lents” consisting of three days; Wednesday, Friday and Saturday:

• after St. Lucy’s Feast Dec. 13,

• After Ash Wednesday,

• following Whitsunday, (Pentecost),

• and after Sept. 14, the Exaltation of the Cross.

The purpose of these “mini Lents” was to pray, fast and to thank God for the gifts He gives us through nature. They follow the four seasons of the year with the beauty and uniqueness of each particular season. They are here for us to teach us to use, with moderation, what God gives us through nature, and to also share these gifts with the poor. Interestingly, despite their venerable history, they were not retained, at least initially and for a good many years, in the revised calendar after Vatican II, but in recent years an attempt has been made at least to mention them in the modern institutional Calendar, but without any particular attempt to have them observed.

So dear faithful, and participants in Adventus30, let us attempt to live these Advent Ember days well. We need to do this, for our sins, for the sins of our relatives and friends, for the sins of the world.

For those of you who have participated in Septuagesima70 we have envisaged, in general, 3 types/levels of fasting - something which I will not delve into today but which can be summarised a little in this way:

• a complete fast on bread and water on one, or all, of these days

• a complete fast on bread and water, until sunset when a normally meal is taken (no dessert obviously

• The minimum required fast (including abstinence from meat on these days) of skipping one meal, all snacks, and partaking in two smaller meals only on the Ember days

What you choose of these three alternatives, actually, will involve any number of considerations from the weather, to your health, to your family’s circumstances, to your weaknesses, to your strengths and what you do is for you to decide, in freedom. (I would suggest that if this is your first time doing penance you might want to give it a try perhaps today for a more comprehensive fast. If you become irritable or simply find yourself unable to do the fast, you might like to leave it aside for this Ember day, and try again on another future one, remembering that the Christian life is not a sprint but a marathon). In a certain sense the key is to do any or all penance in a spirit of love for Our Lord, in a spirit of reparation, but in a spirit of freedom. Of course, if you want to discuss any of the particulars of these Ember fasts for yourself please do not hesitate discuss it with me on Telegram (@FrWithoos) or by email.

May God who has begun the good work in you, bring it to fulfilment. Happy Ember days!

Fr Withoos