Ember Friday of September
September 19, 21, and 22 are the fall Ember days; we take advantage of this opportunity to recall that the Church encourages her faithful to practice the virtue of penance on these days.
In the early Church, the Ember Day liturgy was clearly festive; it was like a solemn thanksgiving after the season’s harvest. It would seem that these bucolic feasts began in Rome and that they were spread to Gaul, Germany and Spain by the popes.
This week’s liturgy, more than that of the other Ember days, has preserved its primitive tone, recalling the harvest of the crops and the grapes, as Pope St. Leo the Great recalls: “It is most fitting that after having enjoyed the abundance of the harvest, we offer to the Lord as it were a holy libation of abstinence.” (sermo II de Ieiunio).
The custom of fasting four times a year also has its origins in the Old Testament:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace!
book of the Prophet Zacharias (8:19).
Priests and deacons were traditionally ordained on these days. The clergy and faithful united in offering their fasts and prayers for those who were going to be ordained.
