Many changes, though, would continue through the 20 th century. Thus, even the 1917 Code kept the ancient practice of holding Ember Days as privileged days for ordinations. Fasting and abstinence were not observed should a vigil fall on a Sunday, as stated in the Code: “If a vigil that is a fast day falls on a Sunday, the fast is not to be anticipated on Saturday but is dropped altogether that year.”Ĭanon 1006 of the 1917 Code further stated men were to be ordained only on Ember Saturdays, Holy Saturday, and the Saturday before Passion Sunday, but the Code added: “If a serious cause intervenes, the bishop can have them even on any Sunday or feast day of the order.” Episcopal consecration was reserved for Sundays and for Feasts of the Apostles. Saturdays in Lent were likewise days of complete abstinence. And of course, complete abstinence was required on all Fridays, including Fridays of Lent, except when a Holy Day of Obligation fell on a Friday outside of Lent. Partial abstinence, the eating of meat only at the principal meal, was obligatory on all weekdays of Lent (Monday through Thursday). Thus they might occasionally fall outside of these seasons, and finally such irregularity may have caused the settlement of the matter as at present.The days of obligatory fasting as listed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law were the forty days of Lent (including Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday until noon) the Ember Days and the Vigils of Pentecost, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, All Saints, and Christmas. It would soon come to pass, then, that they would be spoken of as originally ordained with that view the length of celebration settled, the fasts then became associated with the seasons, and were regarded as independent of Lent, etc. The history of the development of the custom is probably thus: Fasts were celebrated at the times of Lent, Pentecost, and the Nativity these periods would roughly correspond with three of the four seasons, and thus some bishop of Rome, Leo or one of his predecessors, may have conceived the idea of making them symbolize the return of the seasons, and so added the one necessary to complete the four. It was, doubtless, at first a rite merely of the local Roman Church, whence it gradually spread throughout the West. The observance of the Ember days is purely a Western institution. 567), in prescribing the fasts to be observed by monks, makes no mention whatever of the fasts of the four seasons. As regards the Gallican Church, the Ember seasons do not seem to have been established much before the time of Charlemagne. The passage of Athanasius, which some have quoted in support of a different conclusion, merely proves the existence of a fast at Pentecost. In the Eastern Church there is no trace whatever of an observance of the Ember seasons. About the time of Gelasius they were selected as the most fitting for the ordination of the clergy. They were celebrated at Nativity, Easter, Epiphany, and Pentecost. the invoking of God's blessing on each of the four seasons in turn, and the special striving by prayers and fasting to merit such blessings. ![]() We find them at an early period associated with. Ember Days These are days of fasting occurring quarterly, in commemorationi of'the seasons (Lat, quatuor temporum, whence by contraction the German Quatember, and the English Ember).
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