Four times a year, the Church sets aside three days of prayer and fasting to focus on God through His marvelous creation in order to bring about a deeper spiritual renewal. These quarterly periods take place around the beginnings of the four natural seasons. These four times are each kept on a successive Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and are known as “Ember Days”. 

Embertides are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the new Code of Canon Law) in penance and with the intentions of thanking God for the gifts He gives us in nature and beseeching Him for the discipline to use them in moderation. The fasts are rooted in Old Testament practices of fasting four times a year (Zacharias 8:19): “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace.”

You are invited to voluntarily participate in the upcoming spring Ember Days.