Why the Lenten Ember Days impose ‘a double law’ of fasting
The Ember Days in Lent sanctify Spring through fasting and penance, preparing us for Easter.
The Ember Days in Lent sanctify Spring through fasting and penance, preparing us for Easter.
The Purpose of the Ember Days
The Ember Days originated as specifically Roman observances, marked by fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Their origins predate Christianity, appearing in both Jewish and Roman traditions.1 The Church, following her mission to sanctify time, preserved these rhythms but gave them a new purpose: not merely to mark the agricultural cycle, but to consecrate the faithful through fasting and prayer.
They occur quarterly on a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. In Lent, they fall in the first full week, offering a unique means of deepening our penitential practices.
The Ember Days are not merely penitential exercises; they also mark the sanctification of the natural seasons. “Ember” is a corruption of the Latin tempora (times) and the fasts are called “Quattuor Tempora” in Latin, meaning “the four times.” They are linked to the four seasons:
Advent (Winter, for seeding)
Lent (Spring, the emergence of shoots and buds)
Pentecost (Summer, for the harvest)
September (Autumn, for the wine vintage)2
What happens in spring
As each season changes, the Church calls upon the faithful to fast and pray, imploring God’s blessing on creation. Dom Prosper Guéranger explains:
“The fast of today is prescribed by a double law: it is Lent, and it is Ember Wednesday... There are two principal objects for the Ember Days of this period of the year: the first is to offer up to God the Season of Spring, and by fasting and prayer, to draw down his blessing upon it; the second is to ask him to enrich with his choicest graces the Priests and Sacred Ministers who are to receive their Ordination on Saturday.”3
This consecration of the seasons is not merely symbolic but deeply practical. In spring, this is particularly fitting. After winter’s cold, the first buds and green leaves signal the fulfillment of what had been sown. Likewise, as we enter Lent, the redemption promised at Christmas draws nearer.
Similarly, although it may be finished before the end of Lent, January to March is the main pruning season for grapevines. Just as the vine must be pruned to yield a better fruit, so too must the soul undergo purification if it is to bear fruit for eternity.
This is why the Church, through Lent and the Lenten Ember Days, calls us to fast as a preparation for Easter.
The liturgical propers of the Lenten Ember Days
The Scripture readings for the Lenten Ember Days emphasise penance and conversion:
Ember Wednesday: The people of Nineveh fast and repent at Jonah’s preaching, averting divine punishment.
Ember Friday: Christ warns the man He has healed: “Sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee.”
Ember Saturday: The Gospel recounts the Transfiguration of Christ, where Moses and Elias—both of whom fasted for forty days, as recounted in the readings on Ember Wednesday—appear with Christ.
Guéranger comments:
“Today the Church brings before us the two great types of Lent—Moses and Elias—in order to impress us with an idea of the importance of this Forty Days’ Fast, which Christ himself solemnly consecrated when he observed it, and thus fulfilled, in his own person, what the Law and the Prophets had but prefigured. [...]
“Moses and Elias fast for forty days and forty nights, because God bids them come near to Him. Man must purify himself [...] if he would enter into communication with Him who is the Spirit.”4
These readings highlight our need to repent, fast, and purify ourselves if we hope to behold the glory of God at Easter, as Guéranger himself says:
“We cannot, therefore, be surprised that the Church—in order to fit us for this favor, at the Easter Solemnity—bids us go through a preparation of Forty Days, though its severity is not to be compared with the rigid fast which Moses and Elias had to observe, as the condition of their receiving what God promised them.”5
These readings do more than remind us of past examples of penance: they demand that we take up the same discipline today. As Moses and Elias fasted before encountering God, and as Christ Himself prepared for His public mission through fasting, we too must embrace this practice if we are to prepare our souls for Easter.
The Essential Role of Fasting
St. Thomas Aquinas calls fasting a precept of the natural law, essential for disciplining the senses and restoring the soul’s proper order. Josef Pieper writes that fasting is the means by which…
“that inner order by virtue of which the turbulence of sensuality is kept in check and the spirit liberated so that it may soar into the zone of its appropriate fulfilment and satisfaction.”6
Without fasting, spiritual clarity is dulled, and our ability to perceive reality is weakened. Fasting is an essential practice for the Christian life, without which celebrating feasts like Easter is impossible. This is why Pope Benedict XIV warned:
“The observance of Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help."
“Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion and a danger to Christian souls.
“Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.”7
Fasting is indispensable to Lent, yet many wrongly treat it as interchangeable with other acts of mortification. It is certainly of no value if we simultaneously indulge in other vices: but while choosing alternative forms of mortification may be necessary for some individuals, the Missal alone demonstrates how firmly the Church associates Lent with fasting from food.
Quarterly reflection on our lives
Fasting strips away distractions, clears the mind, and allows us to see ourselves as we truly are. The Ember Days invite us to pause, do penance for the past three months, give thanks for blessings received, and examine where we stand—and where we must go.
Finally, they direct our gaze to the future, prompting us to consider what we hope to achieve, how we will grow in virtue, and what sins we must strive to avoid before the next season of fasting arrives.
These three days are perhaps a good time to make the first and second exercises in St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, and to place ourselves at the foot of the cross with the following questions:
What have I done for Christ?
What am I doing for Christ?
What ought I do for Christ?
Yet this reflection cannot remain purely individual.
A Communal Penance
Fasting is often treated as an individualistic practice today, but Pope St. Leo the Great insisted on the communal nature of the Ember Days:
“Although it be lawful for each one of us to chastise his body by self-imposed punishments... need is, that, on certain days, there be celebrated a general fast by all. Devotion is all the more efficacious and holy when, in works of piety, the whole Church is engaged in them, with one spirit and one soul.”8
This corporate penance is a powerful means of obtaining mercy not just for ourselves but for the entire Church and society. The modern neglect of fasting—both in itself, and especially in Lent—is not merely a personal loss but a loss for the whole Mystical Body of Christ.
Another great loss for the Church is the dearth of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life—or at least, a dearth of those responding to these vocations. This is relevant because the Ember Saturdays were the traditional days for ordination to the priesthood and other orders. St. Thomas explains this association:
“Again it is the custom in the Church for Holy orders to be conferred every quarter of the year […] and then both the ordainer, and the candidates for ordination, and even the whole people, for whose good they are ordained, need to fast in order to make themselves ready for the ordination.
“Before choosing His disciples, our Lord 'went out into a mountain to pray.' What shouldst thou do, when thou desirest to undertake some pious work, since Christ prayed before sending His apostles?”9
Given the crisis of vocations and the concerns about the validity of modern ordination and consecration rites, these prayers are more necessary than ever.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Ember Days
The Lenten Ember Days are not mere historical relics or optional oddities. They are vital means for:
Sanctifying the season of Lent through structured fasting.
Doing penance for our sins and restoring discipline.
Praying for the sanctification of the clergy and the raising of true shepherds.
Preparing our souls for the Easter mystery.
As Pope St. Leo exhorts:
“Let us, then, embrace this blessed solidity of holy unity, and with one agreement of the same good will, let us enter upon this solemn fast.”10
By reviving the practice of the Ember Days—especially in Lent—we take a step toward restoring Catholic life, strengthening the Mystical Body, and drawing closer to Christ our Lord himself.
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The Jews observed something similar to the Ember Days, fasting on the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months (Tammuz, Av, Tishrei and Teves; in July, August, October and January respectively). These fasts marked the following events:
Shiva Asa BeTammuz (17th Tammuz): Moses’ breaking the tablets of the Law and the breaching of the Walls of Jerusalem by both Rome and Babylon (apparently on the same calendar date)
Tisha B’Av (9th Av): The destruction of the Temple by Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) and by Titus, as well as God’s decree that the generation of Israelites in the desert would not enter the Promised Land (because they balked at the account of Joshua’s spies). It was apparently also the date of the defeat of the false Messias Bar Kokchba, and of several other difficulties for the Jewish people (such as their expulsion from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1290).
Tzom Gedaliah (3rd or 4th Tishrei, the day after Rosh Hashana): The death of Godolias (Gedaliah) the Governor and the dispersal of the remaining Jews in the Holy land while most were in exile in Babylon.
Asarah B’Tevet (10th Tevet): The captives with Ezechiel hearing about the destruction of the Temple, as well as the translating of the Septuagint (lamented by some of the Rabbis) and the death of Ezra the Scribe.
In addition, The Catholic Encyclopaedia explains the pre-Christian Roman traditions:
“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 immediate occasion was the practice of the heathens of Rome. The Romans were originally given to agriculture, and their native gods belonged to the same class.
“At the beginning of the time for seeding and harvesting religious ceremonies were performed to implore the help of their deities: in June for a bountiful harvest, in September for a rich vintage, and in December for the seeding; hence their feriae sementivae, feriae messis, and feri vindimiales.
“The Church, when converting heathen nations, has always tried to sanctify any practices which could be utilized for a good purpose.”
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q147 A5. Mershman, F. (1909). Ember Days. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05399b.htm
But while their observation is quintessentially Roman, several significant authorities hold that they are actually apostolic in origin. Given the link with Rome, this presumably refers to St Peter in particular. Guéranger also refers to this origin:
“Its introduction into the Christian Church would seem to have been made in the apostolic times; such, at least, is the opinion of St. Leo, of St. Isidore of Seville, of Rabanus Maurus, and of several other ancient Christian writers.” (Guéranger, The Liturgical Year Vol. I)
But whether they were instituted by the Apostles, or are ancient customs of the Roman people which have been sanctified by the Church, or are both: observing the Ember Days is a particular privilege of Roman Catholics, of the Latin Rite. It is a great shame that the observation of these ancient fast days has come to be seen as a traditionalist foible or an optional irrelevancy today—even by some traditionalists themselves.
More precisely, they begin on the Wednesdays following…
Following the feast of St Lucy (13 Dec)
In the first week of Lent
In the Pentecost Octave
Following the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 Sep)
These dates are summarised in two quaint folklore rhymes:
Lenty, Penty, Crucy, Lucy.
Or more dramatically:
Fasting days and Emberings be
Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood and Lucie.
Regarding the September Ember Days: There is some confusion now, following a reform of the calendar by John XXIII, on how this should be calculated. Sometimes, John XXIII’s changes place the Autumn Ember Days a week after they would have been previously. The modern Vatican, when instituting the calendar for the Anglican Ordinariates, reverted to the old method of calculating the date of the Autumn Ember Days.
Each set of Ember Days begins on Wednesday, which is piously supposed to be in remembrance of Christ’s betrayal by Judas on Spy Wednesday.
Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. 5 (Lent), p 156. Trans. Dom Laurence Shepherd, OSB. (1949). St Bonaventure Publications, 2000.
Ibid., 157, 159.
Ibid., 159.
Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, pp 180-1
Benedict XIV, Constitution Non ambigimus, quoted in Guéranger, pp 10-1
Guéranger, Ember Days of September.
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q147 A5.
St. Leo the Great, Sermon iii, De Jeun Sept. Mensis. Ibid., In Guéranger, Ember Days of September.
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