The September Ember Days and the gift of Autumn
Today is the first of the September Ember Days, heralding the approach of Autumn. As with each period of 'The Ember Days at the Four Seasons', these days of prayer and abstinence prepare us for the new season, orienting us to receive the change of seasons as gift. The closing days of Summer in mid-September, the approach of Autumn, mark a time of renewed labour and activities in parish, in school, in workplace. Amidst this renewed labour, this new round of activities, the September Ember Days, with their call to prayer and abstinence, prepare us to receive the gift of Autumn with gratitude and thanksgiving.
In a poem which uses Donne's words as the title, Elizabeth Spires describes Autumn as "a slow and radiant happening". Deep colours in the landscape, the glow of early evening sunsets, hedgerows abounding with berries: there is a glorious radiance to Autumn. The season is, as Keats said, "Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun". The September Ember Days are a means of recalling us to perceive this radiance and fruitfulness of Autumn as gift of the divine bounty.
Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it: thou makest it very plenteous.
The prayer and abstinence of these days is also an appropriate precursor to the thanksgiving of Harvest. In these Islands, Harvest Thanksgiving tends to be observed in late September and early October. In Canada, Thanksgiving is marked on the second Monday of October. While the relatively late date for Thanksgiving in the United States does perhaps somewhat undermine the link with the Ember Days, here too the season which includes thanksgiving for the harvest is heralded by the prayer and abstinence of these days. The September Ember Days, in other words, have something of the penitential character of a vigil, preparing us for the thanksgiving which marks this season.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness: and thy clouds drop fatness.
In calling us to a renewed awareness of how Autumnal radiance is divine gift and itself an iconic reflection of the "of the saints in light" (Colossians 1:12), the September Ember Days are also a preparation for the two festivals of light which mark Autumn, Michaelmas and Hallowmas. The beauty of Autumnal radiance can then draw us to a deeper awareness of the beauty of the angelic order and "thy saints in everlasting glory" (Te Deum). In the words of C.S. Lewis in 'The Weight of Glory':
We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour with she fitfully reflects.
To hear this summons reflected in Autumnal beauty, however, the beauty of which the angels and saints now partake, we need the penitence of the September Days, a penitence which allows us to see more clearly the reflected beauty of the season and the fullness of radiance celebrated at Michaelmas and Hallowmas.
Amidst its beauty and richness, Autumn is also marked by a certain melancholy. Autumnal beauty passes, the days become cooler and darker, the year is waning. As Clerk of Oxford notes, the Ember Days reflect the "deeper correspondences between the four seasons, and the fasts which mark them, and cycles of growth and death which affect everything in the natural world, including the human body". The September Ember Days thus accompany us into a time characterised by decline, fall, impermanence.
and unkept as Eden would be with the walls knocked down,
the paths littered with the unswept leaves of many years, bright keepsakes
for children of the Fall. The light is gold, the sun pulling
the long shadow soul out of each thing, disclosing an outcome - from Elizabeth Spires, 'In Heaven it is always Autumn'.
The penitence of the September Ember Days rightly marks recognition of our mortality, of our own autumnal character, of our hope for the richness and abundance of the eternal Autumn.
They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness: and the little hills shall rejoice on every side.
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