The Autumn Ember Days are This Week; Will You Keep Them?

This week begins one of the quarterly periods observed by the Catholic Church called "Ember Days." I remember them growing up. Our Catholic calendar showed a half fish meaning that on those days (Wednesday and Saturday) meat could only be eaten at the main meal. Friday, of course, was a day of complete abstinence. All three days were fast days (one main meal and two smaller meals that did not add up to a full meal).

The purpose of the ember days was to sanctify the coming season. Catholic Answers quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia describing them this way:

They were definitely arranged and prescribed for the entire Church by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) for the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after December 13 (S. Lucia), after Ash Wednesday, after Whitsunday, and after September 14 (Exaltation of the Cross). The purpose of their introduction, besides the general one intended by all prayer and fasting, was to thank God for the gifts of nature, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy.

The creation of the ember days, as was often the case, illustrating the wisdom of Holy Mother Church, was to replace pagan celebrations. You can't substitute nothing for something so the Church sanctified the harvest and the winter and spring solstices by creating the ember days and urging her children to sanctify each of the seasons.

So what happened to the ember days? 

Vatican II -- 

-- one more pious practice gutted. Well, they didn't exactly gut it. The Congregation for the Defense of the Faith turned the decision to observe the ember days over to the local bishops conferences. And here's what the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) decided, not surprisingly:

Vigils and Ember Days, as most now know, no longer oblige to fast and abstinence. However, the liturgical renewal and the deeper appreciation of the joy of the holy days of the Christian year will, we hope, result in a renewed appreciation as to why our forefathers spoke of "a fast before a feast." We impose no fast before any feast-day, but we suggest that the devout will find greater Christian joy in the feasts of the liturgical calendar if they freely bind themselves, for their own motives and in their own spirit of piety, to prepare for each Church festival by a day of particular self-denial, penitential prayer and fasting.

Ah...the "liturgical renewal" which has given rise to so much holiness in "Holy" Mother Church by: 

• removing the Friday abstinence because we all know that people will voluntarily do much more Friday penance than previously since Friday is the day Christ died and it's a penitential day,
• reducing the number of holy days of obligation or moving them to Sundays,  
• turning Thursday into Sunday for the Feast of Ascension Thursday...

Well, maybe it's time for those who take the faith seriously to go back to practicing the ancient feasts of the ember days. This week is a great time to start. The priests at our chapel encourage us to embrace the penitential spirit of the ember days. They emphasize that we are not required to do it under pain of sin, but that it is a holy practice beneficial to our souls. How pleasing to God if we make the decision to unite ourselves to our ancestors by keeping the ember days. We hear a lot of talk about unity in the synodal Church and what a blessing to be united in practicing the holy traditions of the past.