Of Rogation Days, Ember Days and Movable Feasts or the Catholic Surrender of the Public Square

Blessing of the Fields

After six years on the East Coast I'm back in Chicago, one of the majority of diocese here in the U.S. that celebrates the Ascension on Sunday. New York and Newark, where I've served previously, are two of the few remaining local churches, mainly in the North East, that still observe the solemnity on the Thursday as a holy day of obligation. I know many people who would like to see all the major holy days shifted to the nearest Sunday, maybe with the exception of Christmas. The reasoning goes that most Catholics ignore the obligation to attend Mass on days like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, so why put so much of the Church into a position of committing mortal sin? Of course some question if missing Mass on a Sunday or a holy day is a sin at all, but that's beside the point right now. The idea is that we no longer live in a culture where these days are treated like other holidays; unlike Christmas most people have to work December 8 no matter what. If they did have the day off, going to Mass would be much easier. Since this isn't the case the Church is placing a great imposition on the people that need not be there. Why not move the Immaculate Conception, for instance, to the nearest Sunday and be done with it?

I understand the point, and it's not a terrible one. I just have come to believe that by moving these solemnities to Sundays, as well as the elimination of other traditional observances like the Ember Days and Rogation Days, we have further marginalized the public practice of the faith. Rather than using these feasts as an opportunity for sanctifying time and organizing our lives around the mysteries of the faith, religion is compartmentalized. The Eucharist is for Sunday, work is for the weekdays and Saturday is for shopping, getting things done around the house or going to weddings or some other social function. But none of this, especially the "church" stuff is really integrated into our lives. 

A question you might be asking yourself at this point is, "What are Ember and Rogation Days?" Rogation Days were traditionally set aside in the spiring planting time to pray to God for a good harvest. April 25 was the major Rogation Day, with the three days before Ascension Thursday making up the minor Rogation Days. Fasting and praying in reparation for sins were also associated with these days, as were public processions that included the blessing of the fields. The Ember Days were observed four times a year: on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after the Feast of St. Lucy (December 13) the first Sunday of Lent, Pentecost and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14). The idea was that these dates coincided with the change of seasons and liturgical times. These days too had a penitential tone to them, involving fasting and at least  a partial abstinence from meat. They were meant to teach us to appreciate God's gifts and use them moderately. They also kept us in touch with the changing times of year. With the 1969 reform of the liturgical calendar both Rogation and Ember Days were made optional, which is to say that they disappeared, for the most part. Some rural farming areas in Europe still observe the Rogation Days.

My point is not that we go back to the pre-1969 calendar. All I'm saying is that we got rid of a lot of things after Vatican II and I wonder sometimes if we really thought about what the effects would be. The Council wanted to open the windows to let in some fresh air so as to prepare the Church for the task of evangelizing the modern world. My guess is that those who reformed the liturgical calendar thought they were doing exactly that by de—emphasizing these ancient practices that they thought had lost meaning in our contemporary society. Most of the developed world lives in cities, and doesn't organize its life around the rhythms of nature and the farm. But now that we live in such a tech driven, industrialized, service industry world keeping in touch with the more primordial aspects of life is more essential. Understanding that, no matter how much influence our activity has on the climate, God is the one who is in control keeps us humble and grateful. At the same time being in tuned with the passing seasons and cycles of planting and harvesting awakens us to the fact that we are stewards of this creation and shouldn't take God's blessings for granted, especially if we are misusing and abusing nature. This awareness is even more crucial for those who live in urban and suburban areas who are detached from "the earth."

I can see why our contemporary mind would be uncomfortable with these observances. In the limited research that I did on Rogation and Ember Days the theme of appeasing an angry God came up in relation to the fasts and prayers observed at harvest time. This is clearly a left over from the pagan origin of this custom. The Romans, among others, held sacrifices and festivals around planting and harvest times, and the Church in her wisdom, and following a long standing policy of harmonizing the faith with existing customs, kept the good while doing away with the bad. In this case since praying for a successful planting season and giving thanks for an abundant harvest is, in it self a good thing why not Christianize it? I admit that when I hear about appeasing God the image that comes to mind is some kind of Aztec human sacrifice, or else Fey Wray being offered up by trembling natives to King King. Obviously the practice needed to be further purified and developed, but that it was put aside is a loss for the Church and her mission to engage and Christify the world.

A struggle that we are engaging in today is over the meaning of freedom of religion and, with it, the place of religion in the public square. There are those who want to reduce freedom of religion to freedom of worship. So that it's all fine if people want to gather on a particular day to honor their god, but this does not have any implications for the public life of a nation's citizenry. These are purely private acts to be done inside, doors closed. As Catholics we see that worship, as important as it is, is one aspect of our life in Christ. The worship of God is meant to lead us out into the world to be a leaven, influencing whatever nation we are living in. The Gospel does have political and social implications so that saying we are only Catholics on Sundays in Church is to say that we are not integrated people, not in the harmony of our innermost being, and not as citizens whose love of country is shaped by our membership in the Body of Christ, and not the other way around.

Ours is a sacramental religion which means that external signs and symbols, like statues, icons, processions, verbal prayer, as well as the Sacraments themselves, are important. They are meant to instruct us in the faith, remind us of what we believe and how we should live, and help us witness these things to the outside world. When these public shows are pushed to the side, de facto suppressed actually, we are further marginalized in society. Rather than going out to meet the world we become more isolated. The light of Christ is hidden under a bushel basket rather than allowed to illuminate  the world. But we can't blame some oppressive government or radical atheist activists for this segregation; we did it to ourselves.

This segregation of worship and the world has caused the Church to become fractured, in a sense, between those who stress social justice, who tend to place less importance on popular piety, and those who are strong on matters of personal morality, who tend to be more comfortable at Marian processions. But when we do try to engage the world on matters of social justice or pro—life issues this divide causes us to run the risk of coming off as just another political pressure group on one side or "religious fanatics" on the other. In both cases worship and doctrine have become detached from the fullness of the person of Christ so that both come off looking hollow.

By de—emphasizing traditional public practices and shifting major feast days to Sundays we become invisible. We are accepting the premise that faith is to be compartmentalized in our lives and segregated in society. We have surrendered the public square, in essence, and rather than going out to meet the world, as was the Council's intention, we have retreated into our sanctuaries, building the walls of our fortress even higher.

As much as I've written I still have more to say on this topic. I wrote a lot about the public aspects of Rogation Days, but not the importance of fasting an abstaining on a personal level. But we have come to the end of May, and I've yet to touch on the Blessed Mother as model of the Church as I've promised. So let me do that, and I'll return with more on this topic soon.