The September Ember Days in a time of much affliction and trouble

To the people of Vienna (Mamercus being their Bishop, about 450 years after Christ) there befell many things, the suddenness and strangeness whereof so amazed the hearts of all men, that the city they began to forsake as a place which heaven did threaten with imminent ruin. It beseemed not the person of so grave a prelate to be either utterly without counsel as the rest were, or in a common perplexity to shew himself alone secure. Wherefore as many as remained he earnestly exhorteth to prevent portended calamities, using those virtuous and holy means wherewith others in like case have prevailed with God. To which purpose he perfecteth the Rogations or Litanies before in use, and addeth unto them that which the present necessity required. Their good success moved Sidonius Bishop of Arverna to use the same so corrected Rogations, at such time as he and his people were after afflicted with famine, and besieged with potent adversaries. For till the empty name of the empire came to be settled in Charles the Great, the fall of the Romans' huge dominion concurring with other universal evils, caused those times to be days of much affliction and trouble throughout the world. So that Rogations or Litanies were then the very strength, stay, and comfort of God’s Church - Hooker, LEP V.41.2.

A sense of crisis looms over public discourse in the United Kingdom and across Europe.  War in Ukraine. Fear of further Russian aggression.  Inflation spiking and the cost of living spiralling. An expected energy crisis over the winter months. And, to quote a recent news article, "Many Europeans worry that high inflation due to the current energy crisis could fuel social unrest, protests, and strikes, according to a new survey in France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom".

Hooker's words are a reminder of how Christians traditionally have responded to such times: with prayer, penitence, and fasting. That this is not how we instinctively respond to "days of much affliction and trouble" is itself revealing, indicating how this deeply and inherently Biblical response to troubled times has been lost. 

The Ember Days offer an opportunity to recover these practices.  In the 1662 Kalendar, the "Ember Days at the Four Seasons" are appointed as "Days of Fasting, or Abstinence".  They clearly have a penitential character, placed alongside the forty days of Lent and "All the Fridays in the year", traditional times of fasting and penitence. The Ember Days, falling at the start of each of the seasons, call us to prayer, penitence, and fasting in face of both the gifts and the challenges of the season that lie before us: prayer, penitence, and fasting which prepare us to receive the gifts with gratitude and to seek God's strength and blessing for the challenges.

Despite the liturgical revisions of the late 20th century having little time for the Ember Days, viewing them as a rather embarrassing, antiquated practice, recent decades have indicated the wisdom of their observance.  A changing climate, and a heightened contemporary awareness of our dependence on the climate, has reintroduced us to the need for seasonal prayer.  The political, economic, and social assumptions that underpinned much liturgical revision - that progress and prosperity were secure, plague and pestilence things of the past - has been exposed as delusions.  Seasonal penitence, prayer, and fasting now seems rather more natural, rather less odd.

And then we come to these September Ember Days.  With a very uncertain Winter ahead of us.  A time of fear and crisis.  This year's September Embertide allows us to recover the Biblical response to such times.  Three days of penitence, prayer, and fasting, that we might commit a troubled time to God's mercy and providence; that we might turn from the delusions we so casually accept, forgetting to pray "So teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom".

Sparrow, in his mid-17th century commentary on the Prayer Book, written in a time "of much trouble and affliction", said of the Ember Days, "by custome they have been always kept with Litanies, Prayers and Fasting".

Offering the Litany on each of these September Ember Days gathers up in prayer fears and concerns, the vulnerable and governing institutions, our country and our enemies, our bodily needs and the needs of the soul.  

Prayers of penitence on these September Ember Days would acknowledge how we have journeyed from the way of wisdom that leads to the nourishing waterside, instead dwelling by the dry wells of folly. Troubled times need a turning from folly, a turning to "the wisdom that is from above".

Fasting gives expression to penitence, drawing us in body and soul to attend to the call to repentance. In the words of Jeremy Taylor, "they give but little Testimony of Repentance and Mortification, who never fast". A serious time calls for serious repentance.  And this means fasting and abstinence.

Facing a time "of much affliction and trouble", the September Ember Days are a blessing and gift.  The Litany offered at this Embertide, prayers of penitence, with fasting and abstinence: all this calls us from delusion and fear, from being overwhelmed by uncertainty, from greed, anger, and resentment, to a renewed trust and confidence in the God who provides "those things which are requisite and necessary, both for the body as the soul", heeding the call to be in "in love and charity with your neighbours", and commending "all time of our tribulation" and "all time of our wealth" to our faithful Creator and Redeemer.