Ember Days During Lent As Purgatory: More Mercy to Reduce Our Need to Go There When We Die

O God, Thou hast mulitplied thy Mercy! (Psalm 35:8)

It is not too late for a special penance this week to receive even more grace during this Lenten season. We might have missed Wednesday, but we did not miss Friday and Saturday.

Ember Days (some of this was taken from Msgr. Jean-Joseph Gaume, Catechism of Perseverance)

Ember Days (also called Quarter Tense), sometimes referred to as Ember Week, are days consecrated to penance, three fast days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) that are observed at the close of each season (four times a year). In 2026 they will fall on

February 25, 27 and 28
May 27, 29 and 30
September 23, 25 and 26
December 16, 18 and 19

Ember Days have been practiced from the early ages of the Church and “if the antiquity of a practice, otherwise salutary, is calculated to render it venerable, I leave you to imagine what respect we should have for these days consecrated to penance, and with what religious care we should observe them.” (1)

…We are bound to do penance. Yes, this is the declaration of reason as well as of faith. Every page of the Old Testament recalls the necessity of penance. The Gospel confirms this unchangeable law. How often did the Savior of the world say that penance is an indispensable condition for salvation! Was it not from His lips that fell the words: “Unless you do penance, you shall all perish” (Luke 13:3)? Does not the Church, the infallible representative of the Man-God, add that the life of a Christian ought to be a continual penance? (2)

Again, what is man? He is a being called to imitate a divine being, Whose life, from the crib to the cross, was only one long penance. Thus, as men, as sinners, and as Christians, we are bound to do penance. Our obligation comes both from the natural and the divine law. We have no other means:

of reascending the throne from which we fell;
of returning to the order from which we departed;
of imitating the august Model which, under pain of death, we must resemble.
of avioiding Purgatory when we die.

…The Savior charged His Church to determine all the particulars regarding the precept of penance; to say to man with an infallible authority: ‘The divine precept of penance obliges on such an occasion, and, to comply with it, you must do so-and-so.’ Precious words! Since they rouse negligent souls and calm timid souls, by acquainting them exactly with what God requires of them. How often do they keep man from the frightful misfortune of falling into the hands of his Judge without having done the least thing to atone for a long life of uselessness, perhaps of wickedness!

…Like the traveler left half dead on the road to Jericho, man received three great wounds:

An inordinate love of riches.
An inordinate love of honors.
An inordinate love of pleasures.

These are his wounds, fearful wounds, mortifying wounds, which the apostle St. John, in language profoundly philosophical, calls the three great concupiscences. What remedy is there for these evils, the fatal cause of all man’s tears…?

The remedy for covetousness is detachment.
The remedy for pride is humility.
The remedy for voluptuousness is mortification.

…With the sweet voice of a mother, she [the Church] says to man:

“Fasting, almsdeeds, and prayer: these, my son, are the weapons of which you must avail yourself. These are the remedies prescribed for you by the heavenly Physician.(3) And I - I will tell you the time and the manner of using them”...

Very wise, then, is the Catholic Church in the general obligation that she lays on us to fast. She is no less so fixing a fulfillment of this obligation at the close of each of the four seasons of the year…

Ember Days (Quarter Tense) were established to:

1. Ask pardon of God for the faults committed during the season that has just gone by.

Alas! Every season, while varying our enjoyments, only too often makes us vary our sins:

Spring, which we ought to regard as a time of resurrection to grace, piety, and fervor, distracts our minds; absorbs our thoughts, by the care of temporal undertakings; and removes us from our last end, instead of bringing us nearer thereto. Perhaps it passes without our even once uniting our heart and voice with those of all nature, in order to thank God, Who, by a renovation of all things, provides for our subsistence, and offers us an image of the future resurrection.
Summer raises the heat of the passions. The rich man gives himself on those beautiful days to tours of pleasure, and often to criminal enjoyments. The countryman violates by labor the days consecrated to the Lord. The heart of each is insensible to the varied presents that the Creator sends us.
Autumn, the covetous man fills his barns with the goods of the Father of the family. There is no blessing on his lips for the God Who has made the fields and meadows fertile.
Winter sees costly parties, balls, and theaters. It also sees the tears of the poor, who are hungry and cold. Hard, pitiless selfishness reigns triumphant; and if, at this season, God is sometimes offended by the murmurs of the poor, He is much more offended by the heartlessness of the rich.

…In what season have we not abused the benefits of God? Have we done penance? Have we even thought of it at all? The Church, therefore, was wise in reminding us of its obligation, in prescribing its works, and in fixing its days. Without her, we should let our debts accumulate, and we should reach the gates of eternity as miserable bankrupts, carrying no other introduction to the Supreme Judge than a life of iniquity. With her God is multiplying His mercy (Psalm 35:8) and because of that we may even hope to reduce our need for purgatory when we die.

2. To thank God for the favors that He has granted us.

Many are the benefits that our heavenly Father bestows upon us during the different seasons: each of them brings us His particular gift... Well, now, will you say that, for three months of unceasing liberality, three days of fasting, prayer and good works are too much? The heart that finds the burden of gratitude heavy is greatly to be pitied. Besides, our thanks are even for our own advantage. Ingratitude is like a scorching wind that dries up the source of grace, while gratitude opens our Benefactor’s hand.

3. To draw down on ordinations the graces of the Holy Ghost.

No society without religion, and no religion without priests; but not priests useful to religion or to society without the virtues of their holy state. Though the Church had only this reason to call her children to prayer, fasting and almsdeeds during Ember Days (Quarter Tense), do you think that her command would not have been well founded? Are we not all concerned in having good priests? Is it not on their example and on their instructions that our virtue, the peace of families, and the happiness of the world, in a great measure depend? Are they not appointed by the Lord Himself for the salvation and the destruction of many in Israel?

On Saturday, of ember week (Quarter Tense), the Church multiplies her prayers: there were formerly twelve Lessons read at Mass, but the number has been reduced to five. The Church wishes to engage her children in useful meditations on the benefits of God and to move them by the words of the prophet to ask the blessings of heaven more earnestly for those who are about to receive holy orders.

4. To help us to spend the following season in a more Christian manner.

It is not only useful but necessary for the traveler who makes a long journey to rest from time to time. It is not only useful but necessary for the soldier in the field to have some days of truce, when he may dress his wounds and repair his arms. In similar but even more pressing, it is not only useful but necessary for the Christian to have Ember Days (Quarter Tense).

How to Observe Ember Days during Lent

During Lent (for Catholics obedient to the traditional fasting rules established by the Church before the great watering down of post Vatican II changes) fasting is a part of our daily penances:

Abstinence: no meat or meat-sourced broth (binds persons who have turned 7 years old):
- Ash Wednesday and Fridays between Ash Wednesday and Easter
Fast: only one meal per day and two small meatless collations* (binds persons who have turned 21 and have not yet turned 59). No snacking in between meals. Dessert at that one meal and alcohol are permitted in moderation.
- Ash Wednesday
- Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays between Ash Wednesday & Easter

* As a concession to human weakness, traditional rules allow two small meatless collations in addition to the meal as long as they do not together equal a full meal. The New Marian Missal, by Silvester P. Juergens, S.M., Regina Press, NY, NY, 1961, p.11.

See this historical analysis showing the weakening of the fasting/abstinence rules over the 1900s. This weakening is important because fasting and abstaining is a strong defense against impurity and gluttony as well as all sins and heresies. The weakening in the Church’s fasting and abstaining laws grew much worse after Vatican II. But the weakening before Vatican II could have played some role in reducing Catholics’ readiness to resist the doctrinal and moral attacks beginning in the 1960s.

So, for serious Catholics, there is no additional fasting required for ember days over and above our Lenten required fasting. However, to make this an extra special day of penance - to show God that we are gratedful and set them apart as very important - we could add something else: maybe pass on dessert at the one meal for that day or forgo any alcohol. We could also follow the recommendations in this article: Lent as Purgatory - 6 Acts of Penance that Reduce Our Need to Go There When We Die.

The point is that for the four reasons we just listed we don’t miss the boat:

To ask pardon of God for the faults committed during the season that has just gone by.
To thank God for the favors that He has granted us during the previous season.
To draw down on ordinations the graces of the Holy Ghost.
To help us to spend in a more Christian manner the following season.

Conclusion

O God, Thou hast mulitplied thy Mercy! (Psalm 35:8)

Let us not pass over this time of grace offered to us by God during these Ember Days. In them we pay with a penny for that which we will pay so much more if we wait until the next life to atone for our sins, that is if we die in the state of grace. Time is precious! Don’t waste it!

Observing these ember days in addition to our lenten penance, can keep a faithful Catholic from the frightful misfortune of falling into the hands of his Judge without having done the least thing to atone for a long life of uselessness, perhaps of wickedness and at the same time, draw down many blessings on himself, his family, the Church and the world.

Psalm 35:6-11 is apropose for this:

6 O Lord, thy mercy is in heaven, and thy truth reacheth, even to the clouds. 7 Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord: 8 O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God! But the children of men shall put their trust under the covert of thy wings. 9 They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure. 10 For with thee is the fountain of life; and in thy light we shall see light. 11 Extend thy mercy to them that know thee, and thy justice to them that are right in heart.

End Notes

1. See Baronius, Anno 57, nos 126-127; Isidore, De Ecclesiastics Officiis, chaps. 37-38; Rabanus Maurus, De Institutione Clericorum, bk 2, chap. 19, etc.

2. See Council of Trent, session 14, “On the Sacrament of Extreme Unction,” Introduction

3. Augustine, Sermon, in Vigli, Pentec.).