The Advent Ember Days
The Advent Ember Days are a special time to refocus our devotions in this season of anticipation. This is the new year of the Church, the first season of the liturgical calendar, and we are all as busy as can be getting our homes and souls fresh and ready for the birth of Christ. During the Advent Ember Days, we can breathe a little amid all the bustle of the season and spend those days gathering silence and stillness.
This year, the Ember Days precede Christmas directly. Ember Saturday is actually the day before Christmas Eve! And this close proximity gives us an opportunity to focus deeply on anticipating Christ during these days. In the four days right before Christmas Eve, we have the opportunity to spend three of them fasting and praying for a good end to the year, for priests, who are often so busy during Advent and Christmas, and for the Church as a whole. With so much dissension in the Church these days, it’s a wonderful chance to reach out to God for our priests and bishops.
Volkstelling te Bethlehem, from Pieter Bruegel de Oude, 1566
In the winter (North Hemisphere), I like to make warming stews as fast-breaking meals at the end of the day. This year, I’m planning a simple squash, white bean, and kale stew to serve with an apricot-pepper sourdough loaf (inspired by my parish priest, who is a genius with sourdoughs) for Ember Wednesday. Friday and Saturday meals are still in the planning stage – especially as I’ll also be cooking for Vilia (or Christmas Eve’s dinner), which is also a meatless meal for us.
A Prayer for Vocations in the Ember Days of Winter
Throughout the Ember fast, it’s a good idea to pray both for current priests and for future vocations. It is such a good time to pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life within our own families. I like to skip schooling on Ember Wednesday and Friday, and instead spend a little time telling stories of the saints, especially priests, monks, nuns, and hermits. There are a host of holy men and women to choose from.
In Advent, I like to focus on the saints whose feasts are in December. The hermits Sts. Grwst and Macarius. The monks St. John of the Cross and St. Eigil of Fulda. Nuns like St. Basilissa and St. Irmina the Abbess. Priests like St. Eustace White the Martyr and St. Ambrose the Bishop. I think it’s important for our children to see the world of religious life as at least as rich and varied as that of married life. Full of mystery, danger, joy, and love. In the dark, Ember Days of Advent I sit before the embers of my own little fire and pray:
Eternal Father, rouse our hearts out of the sleep of sin, so that we may clear the path of Your Son into our souls.
Make a gentle road to You in the hearts of my Children, call them to the life that will let them love You most fully. Fill them with joy and peace. Let them abound in hope and rest confident in the power of the Holy Spirit through the darkness of this quiet anticipation.
O Lord preserve us, give us life, and make us blessed upon the earth. Be to us, O Lord, a tower of strength as we face the hidden pathways of life. Let us live them in imitation of Your beloved saints, with quiet duty and unshakeable joy. Amen.
Seen at:
https://catholicstand.com/the-advent-ember-days/
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