![]() ![]() This gradual development was confirmed by Gregory I (d. By the end of the seventh century this March fast had come to coincide with the fast of the 1st week of Lent. Much later, the Gelasian Sacramentary (seventh century) gives evidence of a new fast in March, the first month, which was celebrated as a fast distinct from the Lenten observance. ![]() Thus indeed we observe the spring fast at Lent, the summer fast at Pentecost, the autumn fast in the seventh month, and the winter fast in this month which is the tenth" ( Sermo 19.2 Patrologia Latina 54:186). Thus Leo described the practice of the Church that was current in his day: "The are so spread throughout the whole circle of the year that the law of abstinence is operative at all seasons. Primitively the Lenten fast in its totality was regarded as the spring fast. Though Callistus instituted three seasonal fasts, which the Roman Church observed in the fourth (June), the seventh (September) and the tenth (December) months, without however further determining the specific weeks in which these fasts were to be kept, it is not altogether clear when the fourth annual fast was instituted. Duchesne, 1.222) reports that Innocent constituted Saturday a fast day "because on Saturday the Lord was placed in the sepulchre and His disciples fasted." In 494 Gelasius I appointed Ember Saturdays as the liturgical days on which ordinations were to take place. 417), who extended the Saturday fast to every week of the year, wrote ( Epistola 25 ad Decentium 4 Patrologia Latina 20:555): "Reason shows most clearly that we should fast on Saturday, because it stood between the sadness and the joy. Migne, 54:447) saw also in these fast days a reflection of the ancient Jewish observance of which the book of Zechariah (8.19) speaks: "The fast days of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh and the tenth months shall become occasions of joy and gladness." While the origin of the penitential character of Saturday is somewhat uncertain, it seems probable that it developed through its close association with Friday. But the early Church (e.g., Leo, Sermo 90.1 Patrologia Latina, ed. 223) created, basically, the Ember Days by constituting Saturday in addition to Wednesday and Friday as a fast day to be observed three times (summer, autumn, winter) in the year "in accordance with the prophecy of grain, wine and oil." We have here an example of Christian practice adapting (paralleling) a much older Roman usage, the so-called pagan feasts of nature, the feriae messis (harvest time in June to July), feriae vindemiales (vintage time in September), and feriae sementinae (seed time in December). ![]() The penitential character of Wednesday was very probably inspired by the consideration that it was the day on which the Passion (the arrest of the Lord) commenced, while Friday was the traditional day on which the death of Christ was commemorated by the Church.Īccording to the Liber pontificalis (ed. As early as the Didache, at the end of the apostolic period, therefore, Wednesday and Friday were observed as fast days, later as stational days, too. In view of the fact that the roots of the primitive Christian Church were in Judaism, it is not surprising that its religious practice influenced the discipline of the penitential system of the ancient Church. Though the ultimate origins of the Ember Days are obscure, certain Jewish and pagan influences were operative in their formation. Graz 1955) c.1252.2) the Ember Days were not included among the days on which fast or abstinence are required according to the reorganization of penitential discipline contained in Pope Paul VI's apostolic constitution Poenitemini of Feb. Though formerly observed as days of fast and total (1917 Codex iuris canonici (Rome 1918 repr. They were observed liturgically in that each Ember Day has its own proper Office and Mass celebrated in violet vestments (red, however, in Pentecost). According to this tradition, a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday in a determined week of each season were constituted Ember Days in the liturgical calendar: winter (the week after the third Sunday of Advent), spring (the week after the first Sunday of Lent), summer (in the week after Pentecost Sunday) and autumn (after the feast of the Holy Cross, September 14). By an ancient tradition in the Roman rite, the historical 12 liturgical and penitential days arranged in four triads ( Quattuor tempora, "the four seasons"). ![]()
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