CAPG's Blog 

Let us, therefore, revive Embers days!
Let us again pray, fast, and abstain for more faithful priests!

Wednesday (20th): the day Christ was betrayed (Fast and half-abstinence)
Friday (22nd): Christ was crucified (Fast and abstinence)
and Saturday (23rd): the day Christ was entombed. (Fast and half-abstinence)

"Many Christians, alas, scarcely know the purpose of the Ember days. They have been appointed in order that the faithful pray for good priests, and may supplement their prayers by fasting and good works. Good priests must be obtained through prayer. The greatest blessing for a parish is a good, zealous priest. Those who often pray for priests will draw God's blessing upon themselves, and will experience the assistance and blessing of the priest in the hour of death."

The observance of Ember days is a very old tradition, going back to the Apostolic time and taking after the Roman Pagan customs that held festivals on each seasons of the year. In 494, Pope Gelasius I used the Ember Saturdays to confer ordination to the priesthood.

  From their origins, Ember days had a two fold purpose: to pray for the laborers and for the fruits of the harvest. During these three days, Catholics were thanking Our Blessed Lord"for the gifts of nature" asking Him "to teach men to make use of them in moderation, assist the needy" but most of all to pray for more good priests. Ember Days: Catholic Encyclopedia

  In 1969, Pope Paul VI excluded the embers day from being mandatory days of fast and abstinence and left their celebrations to the discretion of the local bishops. Even though the US Bishops' Conference has decided not to celebrate them, we may still choose to do so as a personal devotion since its observance at home or small communities is not discouraged:
  "17. Vigils and Ember Days, as most now know, no longer oblige to fast and abstinence. However, the liturgical renewal and the deeper appreciation of the joy of the holy days of the Christian year will, we hope, result in a renewed appreciation as to why our forefathers spoke of "a fast before a feast." We impose no fast before any feast-day,but we suggest that the devout will find greater Christian joy in the feasts of the liturgical calendar if they freely bind themselves, for their own motives and in their own spirit of piety, to prepare for each Church festival by a day of particular self-denial, penitential prayer and fasting."
Vigils and Ember Days (USCCB) 1966

"We should never let these seasons pass without adding prayer to our fasts, or it may be compensating fast by prayer. Our prayer should be for the clergy, not only those ordained, though for them especially; but  for the Sovereign Pontiff, the cardinals, bishops, parochial clergy, missionaries and religious orders, seminarians; and for the grace of vocation to the priesthood. An excellent prayer for this purpose is the Litany of the Saints, in which so many bishops, priests, and Levites are invoked; or the Rosary may be appropriately said, grouping those for whom we pray into five classes, corresponding to the five decades. Publications of the Catholic Truth Society, (Volume 24)

"The fast of the Ember days has been instituted principally to obtain of God good, holy and zealous priests for His Church. On this point especially depend the honor  and welfare of the Church and the salvation of mankind. History proves, beyond all doubt, that a careless and tepid clergy do greater injury to the Church and to the souls of men than a bitter and bloody persecution. Persecution, in its outcome, proves beneficial to the Church and sends heroic martyrs to heaven, but a clergy devoid of holiness and virtue is the scourge of souls and the disgrace of the Church.

"Many Christians, alas, scarcely know the purpose of the Ember days. They have been appointed in order that the faithful pray for good priests, and may supplement their prayers by fasting and good works. Good priests must be obtained through prayer. The greatest blessing for a parish is a good, zealous priest. Those who often pray for priests will draw God's blessing upon themselves, and will experience the assistance and blessing of the priest in the hour of death." Rev. Ferreol Girarday C.S.S.R