"Fasting is serious religion." So said Quodcumque in an important post last year:
Whether it was the serious fasting of Islam or Pentecostalism I have been challenged by many to examine and experiment with my own practice of fasting, and to encourage others to try it ... If there is to be a renewal of the Catholic stream in Anglicanism perhaps it will begin when we once again practice this ancient discipline.
And it is an ancient discipline enshrined in the classical Anglicanism of the Book of Common Prayer 1662. At the 1661 Savoy Conference, the Puritans demanded "that there be nothing in the Liturgy which may seem to countenance the observance of Lent as a religious fast". They utterly failed in their assault on the Lenten fast. Not only, however, was the Lenten fast explicitly recognised in the BCP 1662, so too were the Ember fasts "at the Four Seasons", also rejected by the Puritans.
While Embertide prayers have a particular focus on those who will be admitted into Holy Orders, the Embertide fasts are not only oriented to this. Thus, in his A Rationale Upon the Book of Common Prayer, Sparrow states that the practice also reflected the cycle of fasting for the people of Israel and was a means of petitioning God's blessing upon "the several seasons of the year". Noting that there is no liturgical provision for the Ember Days in the BCP, he continues:
These Fasts are still appointed by the Church of England. For though she hath not reckoned them amongst the Holy daies, because there is no peculiar Office appointed for them, (as there is to all those that are reckoned in the Catalogue of Holy days) yet by custome they have been always kept with Litanies, Prayers and Fasting.
Here, then, we can see one aspect (for another, see here) of the contemporary significance of the Ember Days for an Anglicanism in which the discipline of fasting has been widely lost. Restoring and renewing the practice of fasting requires - as with most practices in the spiritual life - times and rhythms. Without set times for prayer, the practice of prayer is too easily lost. Without set times for the reading of Scripture, the practice of reading Scripture is too easily lost. And without set times for fasting, the practice of fasting is too easily lost.
Three fasting days, four times a year, at the beginning of each season. The Ember Days provide a means of restoring the simple but serious practice of fasting as a regular occurence within the Christian life. As such, they also ensure that we are not unused to the practice of fasting and thus are more open to the call of the Lenten fast.
That the Four Seasons are marked by fasting also brings us to experience the grace of fasting. The seasons open not with consumption, and grasping, and frenetic activity, but with the practice of fasting, orienting us to discern with gratitude the gifts bestowed in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, opening us to the Real and the Good.
If we want to renew the practice of fasting within Anglicanism, restoring the Ember Days is a good place to start.
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