P eople are dying in the streets, dying in nursing homes, dying in hospital beds. Our cities smolder with outrage and grief over centuries of racial injustice, punctuated most recently by the murder of George Floyd. Instead, these days take their name from a transliteration of the Latin Quatuor tempora, which simply means “four times.” Ember Days are days set aside four times a year for fasting and prayer, and they particularly focus on the mission of the church.īut we are now living in our own ember days which have everything to do with the remains of a fire. The origin is obscure, but likely has nothing to do with the remains of a fire. Ember Days take place four times a year (one for each season) on a Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Which means that, for the first time ever, I’m paying attention to yet another obscure Anglican calendar observance: Ember Days. This rhythm feeds and fuels a hunger for more prayer, more community, more scripture, more Jesus.

I’m praying the daily office (the rhythm and format of daily prayer) with a new consistency, and as a result, reading more scripture aloud with more people more days of the week than I ever have before. I’m observing its calendar of feasts and fasts well beyond just Sundays, to midweek days like Rogation and Ascension. I’m mining its collects for words to pray when I cannot seem to form my own. Throughout the present pandemic, I find myself leaning on the Book of Common Prayer like never before.

Ember days 2020 anglican