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Everything is burgeoning! The dogwoods, irises, and peonies have finished blooming, but the clematis and pinks are going wild and the lavender shooting out bloom stalks. I love this time of year.
My youngest daughter has started two bed in a sunny spot in our back yard that are modelled after the traditional “three sisters” way of planting. First she planted corn and sunflowers. Now that they’re coming up nicely she’s going to plant beans, which will twine up the stalks of the taller plants, then in a few weeks she’ll plant squashes, which will flourish on the ground below the other plants.
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This coming Sunday will be the sixth Sunday of the Easter season. Up until fairly recently the Gospel reading for this Sunday was John 16:23-33, which begins, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” The Latin word for ask is rogare, and so this Sunday is known in liturgical churches as “Rogation Sunday.”
One of the traditional prayers for this brief season is the prayer for fruitful seasons:
Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that thy gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them that we, who constantly receive good things from thy had, may always give thee thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I have written before about some of the festive ways Christians have kept the days between Rogation Sunday and Ascension Thursday, but this week something new struck me and I wanted to mention it here.
Over the last year I’ve been dipping into Eleanor Parker’s delightful book, Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year, and last night I read her section called “Holy and Healthy Days,” which is on the origins of Rogationtide and the ways the early medieval English Christians kept this season. She mentions one of Aelfric’s sermons for Rogationtide and describes how the season was a penitential season as well as a festive one. Aelfric says that during this season, “we should pray for abundance of our earthly fruits, and for health and peace for ourselves, and, what is still greater, for the forgiveness of our sins” (pp. 157-158).
So, on the Rogation Days (the three days between Rogation Sunday and Ascension Day), the priests and parishioners would walk around the parish boundaries not only praying for fruitful seasons, but also praying for the forgiveness of their own sins and for the Lord’s mercy on their city. In his History, Bede quotes a chant from the Gallican Rogation Litany:
We pray Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy wrath and anger may be turned away from this city and from Thy holy house, for we are sinners. Amen.
As Parker puts it so beautifully, “The Rogation Days seek physical and spiritual health for the individual, the community and the natural world; all are connected, one harmonious whole” (p. 162).
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For more on Aelfric’s sermon and the medieval traditions, see Eleanor Parker’s blog post at The Clerk of Oxford.
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Love this! I read the blog posts you linked (and another of Eleanor Parker's that she linked in her blog post) - very interesting stuff. I saw that some of the Rogation homilies date back to the 10th century. How far back does the whole tradition go? Is it a Roman thing or an Anglo-Saxon thing or...?
ReplyDeleteIn the book, Parker says, "The origins of Rogationtide lie in fifth century Gaul, around 470, when Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, instituted three days of penance before Ascension Day in response to troubles afflicting his city." She also says that the practice in England is first recorded in the 8th century.
DeleteCool, thanks! :D
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