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Four times a year, once in each season, the Church traditionally sets aside a Wednesday, a Friday and a Saturday as days of penance, to consecrate each season to God. These days are called the Ember Days, from the Latin Quatuor Tempora, meaning “four times”. Ember Week of Advent, which also always follows St. Lucy’s Day, begins on the Wednesday after Gaudete Sunday—the Third Sunday of Advent—and begs for God’s blessing upon the season of winter. This winter Embertide punctuates the preparatory season of Advent, emphasizing penance during the final anticipatory days before the great feast of Our Lord’s Nativity and the joyous season of Christmastide that follows.
Ember Friday would traditionally be a day of fasting and total abstinence from meat. St. Leo the Great, like others, emphasizes also the importance of almsgiving, saying “Let the abstinence of him that fasts, become the meal of the poor man.” Though only the current code of the Church is binding today, it is certainly of great spiritual benefit to voluntarily unite oneself with the ancient practices of the Church in at least some small way, imitating the many known and unknown saints of times past. In this way, one takes greater part in the living, breathing, and praying of the timeless Body of Christ throughout the centuries.