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"Rogation" comes
from the Latin "rogare," which means "to ask," and "Rogation Days" are days
during which we seek to ask God's mercy, appease His anger, avert His
chastisements manifest through natural disasters, and ask for His blessings,
particularly with regard to farming, gardening, and other agricultural pursuits.
They are set aside to remind us how radically dependent we are on Mother
Earth, and how prayer can help protect us from nature's often cruel ways.
It is quite easy, especially for modern city folk, to sentimentalize nature
and to forget how powerful, even savage, she can be. Time is spent focusing
only on her lovelier aspects -- the beauty of snow, the smell of cedar, the
glories of flowers -- as during Embertides --
but in an instant, the veneer of civilization we've built to keep nature
under control so we can enjoy her without suffering at her hand can be swept
away. Ash and fire raining down from great volcanoes, waters bursting through
levees, mountainous tidal waves destroying miles of coastland and entire
villages, meteors hurling to earth, tornadoes and hurricanes sweeping away
all in their paths, droughts, floods, fires that rampage through forests
and towns, avalanches of rocks or snow, killer plagues, the very earth shaking
off human life and opening up beneath our feet, cataclysmic events forming
mountains and islands, animals that prey on humans, lightning strikes --
these, too, are a part of the natural world. And though nature seems random
and fickle, all that happens is either by God's active or passive Will, and
all throughout Scripture He uses the elements to warn, punish, humble, and
instruct us: earth swallowing up the rebellious, power-mad sons of
Eliab; wind destroying Job's house; fire raining down on Sodom
and Gomorrha; water destroying everyone but Noe and his family (Numbers
16, Job 1, Genesis 19, Genesis 6). We need to be humble before and respectful
of nature, and be aware not to take her for granted or overstep our limits.
But we need to be most especially humble before her Creator, Who wills her
existence and doings at each instant, whether actively or passively. Consider
the awe-inspiring words of Nahum 1:2-8:
The Lord is a jealous
God, and a revenger: the Lord is a revenger, and hath wrath: the Lord taketh
vengeance on His adversaries, and He is angry with His enemies. The Lord
is patient, and great in power, and will not cleanse and acquit the guilty.
The Lord's ways are in a tempest, and a whirlwind, and clouds are the dust
of His feet. He rebuketh the sea, and drieth it up: and bringeth all the
rivers to be a desert. Basan languisheth and Carmel: and the dower of Libanus
fadeth away. The mountains tremble at Him, and the hills are made desolate:
and the earth hath quaked at His presence, and the world, and all that dwell
therein.
Who can stand before the face of His indignation? and who shall resist in
the fierceness of His anger? His indignation is poured out like fire: and
the rocks are melted by Him. The Lord is good and giveth strength in the
day of trouble: and knoweth them that hope in Him. But with a flood that
passeth by, He will make an utter end of the place thereof: and darkness
shall pursue His enemies.
Recalling these
Truths, beseeching God and His Saints to protect us from disaster, and doing
penance so He does not see us as His enemies are what Rogation Days are about.
These days are divided between the Major Rogation -- 25 April (by coincidence
alone, the Feast of St. Mark) -- and the Minor Rogation, which consists of
the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before
Ascension Thursday.
The Major Rogation is of Roman origin, instituted by Pope St. Gregory the
Great (b. 540) after a great plague besieged Rome. The Golden Legend, written
by Jacobus de Voragine in 1275 explains:
For as the Romans
had in the Lent lived soberly and in continence, and after at Easter had
received their Saviour. After, they disordered them in eating, in drinking,
in plays and in lechery. And therefore our Lord was moved against them, and
sent to them a great pestilence, which was called the botche of impedimy.
And that was cruel and sudden, and caused people to die in going by the way,
in playing, in being at table, and in speaking one with another suddenly
they died. In this manner sometime sneezing they died, so that when any person
was heard sneezing anon they that were by said to him: God help you, or Christ
help: and yet endureth the custom. And also when he sneezeth or gapeth, he
maketh tofore his face the sign of the Cross, and blesseth him; and yet endureth
this custom.
The Minor Rogation
Days are of French origin, coming about in the 5th c., when St. Mamertus,
Bishop of Vienne, Dauphiné instituted them after a series of natural
calamities. According to the Golden Legend:
For then, at Vienne,
were great earthquakes of which fell down many churches and many houses,
and there was heard great sounds and great clamours by night. And then happed
a terrible thing on Easter-day, for fire descended from heaven that burnt
the king's palace. Yet happed more marvellous thing; for like as the fiends
had entered into the hogs, right so by the sufferance of God for the sins
of the people, the fiends entered into wolves and other wild beasts, which
every one doubted, and they went not only by the ways ne by the fields, but
also by the cities ran openly, and devoured the children and old men and
women. And when the Bishop saw that every day happed such sorrowful adventures,
he commanded and ordained that the people should fast three days; and he
instituted the Litanies, and then the tribulation ceased.
Pope St. Leo III
-- the Pope who crowned Charlemagne on Christmas Day of 800 -- introduced
these days of penance into Rome in 816, the year of his death, after which
they became standard throughout the Roman Church.
The liturgy for the Rogation Days, during which the priest is vested in purple,
begins with Psalm 43:26 --"Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for Thy name's
sake" -- which is followed by the Litany of the
Saints (you can download this Litany, in Microsoft Word .doc format,
in English or in
Latin). At the Litany's "Sancta Maria,"
all stand and a procession begins, which in older times was (and still is
in rural areas) usually around the boundaries of the parish, giving to the
procession the name of "beating the bounds."
The Litany is followed by Psalm 69, a series of petitions, and the Mass,
with readings from James 5:16-20 and Luke 11:5-14.
Just for informational
purposes, here is what the Rogation Days' processions were like in medieval
times, again from the Golden Legend. How marvelous!:
And in this procession
the Cross is borne, the clocks and the bells be sounded and rung, the banners
be borne, and in some churches a dragon with a great tail is borne. And aid
and help is demanded of all Saints.
And the cause why the Cross is borne and the bells rung is for to make the
evil spirits afraid and to flee; for like as the kings have in battles tokens
and signs-royal, as their trumpets and banners, right so the King of Heaven
perdurable hath His signs militant in the Church. He hath bells for business
and for trumps, He hath the Cross for banners. And like as a tyrant and a
malefactor should much doubt when he shall hear the business and trumps of
a mighty king in his land, and shall see his banners, in like wise the enemies,
the evil spirits that be in the region of the air, doubt much when they hear
the trumpets of God which be the bells rung, and when they see the banners
borne on high. And this is the cause why the bells be rung when it thundereth,
and when great tempests and outrages of weather happen, to the end that the
fiends and the evil spirits should be abashed and flee, and cease of the
moving of tempests. Howbeit also that there is another cause therewith; that
is for to warn the Christian people, that they put them in devotion and in
prayer, for to pray God that the tempest may cease.
There is also the banner of the King, that is the Cross, which the enemies
dread much and doubt. For they dread the staff with which they have been
hurt. And this is the reason wherefore in some churches in the time of tempest
and of thunder, they set out the Cross against the tempest to the end that
the wicked spirits see the banner of the sovereign King, and for dread thereof
they flee. And therefore in procession the Cross is borne, and the bells
rung for to chase and hunt away the fiends being in the air, and to the end
that they leave to tempest us. The Cross is borne for to represent the victory
of the Resurrection, and of the Ascension of Jesu Christ. For He ascended
into Heaven with all a great prey. And thus this banner that flyeth in the
air signifieth Jesu Christ ascending into Heaven.
And as the people follow the Cross, the banners, and the procession, right
so when Jesu Christ styed up into Heaven a great multitude of Saints followed
Him. And the song that is sung in the procession signifieth the song of angels
and the praisings that came against Jesu Christ and conducted and conveyed
Him to Heaven where is great joy and melody.
In some churches, and in especial in them of France, is accustomed to bear
a dragon with a long tail filled full of chaff or other thing. The two first
days it is borne before the Cross, and on the third day they bear it after
the Cross, with the tail all void, by which is understood that the first
day tofore the law, or the second under the law, the devil reigned in the
world, and on the third day, of grace, by the Passion of Jesu Christ, he
was put out of his realm.
Customs
In addition to
the penance, processions and Masses mentioned above, meditating on how
devastating natural forces can be is in order. We are usually so buffered
from the natural world with our cozy, modern homes, air conditioning, ability
to fly through the air from Chicago to Paris in hours, and other wonders,
that we can easily sentimentalize nature and see her in a Rousseauian way
-- taking her for granted, being condescending toward her, and exhibiting
masterful instead of masterly behaviors in our dealings with her. It is rare
that nature breaches the walls of civilization and technology we've set up
around us, but breach them she can, and does, and this reality must be
appreciated. Tell your children about how the elements can escape our control,
and how we should remember our place as those who've been given dominion
over nature, but never apart from God. Tell them about some of the great
disasters that have fascinated and frightened us throughout History -- e.g.,
the stories of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Black Death, the London Fire
of 1666, the great early 19th c. earthquakes along the New Madrid fault line
that reversed the course of the Mississippi River, the Chicago Fire of 1871,
the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Yellow
River Floods of 1887 and 1931...
See also pages
on Ember Days
Reading
Jeremias 10-11:1-6
Hear ye the word
which the Lord hath spoken concerning you, O house of Israel. Thus saith
the Lord: Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles: and be not afraid
of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear: For the laws of the people
are vain: for the works of the hand of the workman hath cut a tree out of
the forest with an axe. He hath decked it with silver and gold: he hath put
it together with nails and hammers, that it may not fall asunder. They are
framed after the likeness of a palm tree, and shall not speak: they must
be carried to be removed, because they cannot go. Therefore, fear them not,
for they can neither do evil nor good.
There is none like to thee, O Lord: thou art great and great is thy name
in might. Who shall fear thee, O king of nations? for thine is the glory:
among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms there is
none like unto thee. They shall all proved together to be senseless and foolish:
the doctrine of their vanity is wood. Silver spread into plates is brought
from Tharsis, and gold from Ophaz: the work of the artificer, and of the
hand of the coppersmith: violet and purple is their clothing: all these things
are the work of artificers. But the Lord is the true God: he is the living
God, and the everlasting king, at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and
the nations shall not be able to abide his threatening.
Thus then shall you say to them: The gods that have not made heaven and earth,
let them perish from the earth, and from among those places that are under
heaven. He that maketh the earth by his power, that prepareth the world by
his wisdom, and stretcheth out the heavens by his knowledge. At his voice
he giveth a multitude of waters in the heaven, and lifteth up the clouds
from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings for rain, and bringeth for
the wind out of his treasures. Every man is become a fool for knowledge every
artist is confounded in his graven idol: for what he hath cast is false,
and there is no spirit in them. They are vain things and a ridiculous work:
in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
The portion of Jacob is not like these: for it is he who formed all things:
and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.
Gather up thy shame out of the land, thou that dwellest in a siege. For thus
saith the Lord: Behold I will cast away far off the inhabitants of the land
at this time: and I will afflict them, so that they may be found. Woe is
me for my destruction, my wound is very grievous. But I said: Truly this
is my own evil, and I will bear it. My tabernacle is laid waste, all my cords
are broken: my children are gone out from me, and they are not: there is
none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord: therefore
have they not understood, and all their flock is scattered. Behold the sound
of a noise cometh, a great commotion out of the land of the north: to make
the cities of Juda a desert, and a dwelling for dragons. I know, O Lord,
that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a man to walk, and to
direct his steps. Correct me, O Lord, but yet with judgement: and not in
fury, lest thou bring me to nothing. Pour out thy indignation upon the nations
that have not known thee, and upon the provinces that have not called upon
thy name: because they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed
him, and have destroyed his glory.
The word that came from the Lord to Jeremias, saying: Hear ye the words of
this covenant, and speak to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Cursed
is the man that shall not hearken to the words of this covenant, Which I
commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of
Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying: Hear ye my voice, and do all things
that I command you: and you shall be my people, and I will be your God: That
I may accomplish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land
flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. And I answered and said:
Amen, O Lord.
And the Lord said to me: Proclaim aloud all these words in the cities of
Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear ye the words of the covenant,
and do them... |
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