A Reason for Eating Japanese Food this Week (midweek message)

A Reason for Eating Japanese Food this Week

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

June 12, 2019

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this week are in the liturgical calendar called “Ember Days.” These days of fasting or abstaining from eating flesh took place four times a year to allow, like Rogation Days, for special prayers for a good agricultural cycle.   They traditionally take place on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of a week during Spring planting (after the First Sunday of Lent), Summer growth (after Pentecost), Autumn harvest (after the feast of the Holy Cross on September 14), and Winter fallowing and early plantings (near the third Sunday of Advent, close to the Feast of St. Lucy, December 13, which was the Winter solstice under the Julian Calendar). A late Medieval couplet served as an aide-memoire for when these fasts took place:

“Fasting days and Emberings be
Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.” 

(Rood is Middle English for a crucifix; Whitsunday (“White Sunday”) is Pentecost, when baptisms took place, the candidates all arrayed in white.)

“Ember” here doesn’t have anything to do with coals or campfires.  It comes from Anglo-Saxon ymb-ren, “a run around [the sun].”  These agricultural fasts were called in Latin Quatuor Tempora, “the four times,” a phrase that gave rise to a Japanese term for a special way of preparing seafood and vegetables.  Jesuits from Portugal set up their mission to Japan in Nagasaki in the 1500s.  They asked local cooks to prepare meatless meals suitable for fasts by deep-frying shrimp and vegetables, very much in the style of Portuguese peixinhos da horta, hearty deep-fried vegetables, and the dish’s avatar in Goa, the Portuguese colony in India, pakora.  The Japanese cooks made the dish their own, creating a lighter, less starchy crust.  Mistaking the Portuguese missionaries' name for the occasion for this food for the food itself, they called their new dish tempura.  Yum. 

Fifth century Western Church fathers like Leo the Great and Jerome speak of Ember Days as special seasonal fasts for agriculture.  By the end of that century, they had become associated with ministers, those sent out to work in “the Lord’s vineyard and harvest”: Pope Gelasius (d. 496 CE) says that Ember Days are appropriate times for ordinations.   In modern times, they serve as occasions for reflection, reporting, and prayer for those preparing for Holy Orders, who write on Ember Days reports to their Bishops on their progress.  

We all in baptism are called as ministers of the Gospel, regardless of our status as clergy or lay.  Ember Days give us an occasion to reflect on our ministries. 

How are you doing in fulfilling the charge you received in baptism?  The baptismal covenant in the Prayer Book tells us what the calling of all Christians is: be faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers; whenever you fall into sin repent and return to the Lord; proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus Christ; seek and serve Christ in all persons; work for justice and peace and treat every person with dignity.

Making this our own starts always in a process of discernment, by which we come to understand what our own particular vocation is, what it is that God is calling us specifically to.  Presbyterian theologian Frederick Beuchner defined vocation as where our deepest joy meets the world’s deepest need.  Finding out where we are energized, “in the flow,” and in sober deep pleasure, and matching this to the needs and hunger of those about us is the principal task of discernment.  Attentiveness is key, paying close attention to where our joy lies.  

Your efforts in the ministry you are called to individually—are they sufficient?  Do they have enough focus?  Could they be broader, wider, or deeper?    How might you better equip yourself for more effective ministry? 

I encourage all of us this week of Ember Days to reflect on our ministry and find ways to better fulfill our vocation.   And maybe we should at some point go out for Japanese food. 

Grace and Peace,    Fr. Tony+