15 MAY – ROGATION MONDAY

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

It seems strange that there should be anything like mourning during Paschal Time, and yet these three days are days of penance. A moment’s reflection, however, will show us that the institution of the Rogation Days is a most appropriate one. True, our Saviour told us before His Passion that the children of the Bridegroom should not fast while the Bridegroom is with them (Luke v. 34), but is not sadness in keeping with these the last hours of Jesus’ presence on Earth? Were not His Mother and Disciples oppressed with grief at the thought of their having so soon to lose Him whose company had been to them a foretaste of Heaven?

Let us see how the Liturgical Year came to have inserted in its Calendar these three days during which Holy Church, though radiant with the joy of Easter, seems to go back to her Lenten observances. The Holy Ghost, who guides her in all things, willed that this completion of her Paschal Liturgy should owe its origin to a devotion peculiar to one of the most illustrious and venerable Churches of southern Gaul: it was the Church of Vienne. The second half of the fifth century had but just commenced when the country round Vienne, which had been recently conquered by the Burgundians, was visited with calamities of every kind. The people were struck with fear at these indications of God’s anger. Saint Mamertus, who, at the time, was Bishop of Vienne, prescribed three days public expiation during which the faithful were to devote themselves to penance, and walk in procession chanting appropriate Psalms. The three days preceding the Ascension were the ones chosen. Unknown to himself, the holy Bishop was thus instituting a practice which was afterwards to form part of the Liturgy of the universal Church.

The Churches of Gaul, as might naturally be expected, were the first to adopt the devotion. Saint Alcimus Avitus, who was one of the earliest successors of Saint Mamertus in the See of Vienne, informs us that the custom of keeping the Rogation Days was at that time firmly established in his Diocese. Saint Caesarius of Aries, who lived in the early part of the sixth century, speaks of their being observed in countries afar off, by which he meant, at the very least, to designate all that portion of Gaul which was under the Visigoths. That the whole of Gaul soon adopted the custom is evident from the Canons drawn up at the first Council of Orleans held in 511, and which represented all the Provinces that were in allegiance to Clovis. The regulations, made by the Council regarding the Rogations, give us a great idea of the importance attached to their observance. Not only abstinence from flesh-meat, but even fasting, is made of obligation. Masters are also required to dispense their servants from work, in order that they may assist at the long functions which fill up almost the whole of these three days. In 567 the Council of Tours, likewise, imposed the precept of fasting during the Rogation Days, and as to the obligation of resting from servile work, we find it recognised in the Capitularia of Charlemagne and Charles the Bald.

The main part of the Rogation rite originally consisted, (at least in Gaul), in singing canticles of supplication while passing from place to place — and hence the word procession. We learn from Saint Caesarius of Aries that each day’s procession lasted six hours, and that when the clergy became tired, the women took up the chanting. The faithful of those days had not made the discovery, which was reserved for modern times, that one requisite for religious processions is that they be as short as possible.

The procession for the Rogation Days was preceded by the faithful receiving the ashes upon their heads, as now at the beginning of Lent. They were then sprinkled with holy water, and the procession began. It was made up of the clergy and people of several of the smaller parishes, who were headed by the Cross of the principal Church, which conducted the whole ceremony. All walked bare-foot, singing the Litany, Psalms and Antiphons. They entered the churches that lay on their route, and sang an Antiphon or Responsory appropriate to each. Such was the original ceremony of the Rogation Days, and it was thus observed for a very long period. The Monk of St. Gall’s, who has left us so many interesting details regarding the life of Charlemagne, tells us that this holy Emperor used to join the processions of these three days, and walk barefooted from his palace to the Stational Church. We find Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, in the fourteenth century, setting the like example: during the Rogation Days she used to mingle with the poorest women of the place, and walked bare-footed, wearing a dress of coarse stuff. Saint Charles Borromeo, who restored in his Diocese of Milan so many ancient practices of piety, was sure not to be indifferent about the Rogation Days. He spared neither word nor example to re-animate this salutary devotion among his people. He ordered fasting to be observed during these three days. He fasted himself on bread and water. The procession, in which all the clergy of the city were obliged to join, and which began after the sprinkling of ashes, started from the Cathedral at an early hour in the morning, and was not over till three or four o’clock in the afternoon. Thirteen churches were visited on the Monday, nine on the Tuesday, and eleven on the Wednesday. The saintly Archbishop celebrated Mass and preached in one of these churches.

If we compare the indifference shown by the Catholics of the present age for the Rogation Days, with the devotion with which our ancestors kept them, we cannot but acknowledge that there is a great falling off in faith and piety. Knowing, as we do, the importance attached to these processions by the Church, we cannot help wondering how it is that there are so few among the faithful who assist at them. Our surprise increases when we find persons preferring their own private devotions to these public prayers of the Church, which to say nothing of the result of good example, merit far greater graces than any exercises of our own fancying.

The whole Western Church soon adopted the Rogation Days. They were introduced into England at an early period. So, likewise, into Spain and Germany. Rome herself sanctioned them by her own observing them. This she did in the eighth century during the pontificate of Saint Leo III. She gave them the name of the Lesser Litanies, in contradistinction to the Procession of the 25th of April, which she calls the Greater Litanies. With regard to the fast which the churches of Gaul observed during the Rogation Days, Rome did not adopt that part of the institution. Fasting seemed to her to throw a gloom over the joyous forty days which our Risen Jesus grants to His disciples. She therefore enjoined only abstinence from flesh-meat during the Rogation Days. The Church of Milan, which, as we have just seen, so strictly observes the Rogations, keeps them on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, that is to say, after the forty days devoted to the celebration of the Resurrection.

If, then, we would have a correct idea of the Rogation Days, we must consider them as Rome does, that is, as a holy institution which, without interrupting our Paschal joy, tempers it. The purple vestments used during the procession and Mass do not signify that our Jesus has fled from us (Canticles viii. 14), but that the time for His departure is approaching. By prescribing abstinence for these three days, the Church would express how much she will feel the loss of her Spouse who is so soon to be taken from her. In England, as in many other countries, abstinence is no longer of obligation for the Rogation Days. This should be an additional motive to induce the faithful to assist at the Processions and Litanies, and, by their fervently uniting in the prayers of the Church, to make some compensation for the abolition of the law of abstinence. We need so much penance, and we take so little! If we are truly in earnest, we will be most fervent in doing the little that is left us to do.

The object of the Rogation Days is to appease the anger of God, and avert the chastisements which the sins of the world so justly deserve. Moreover, to draw down the divine blessing on the fruits of the earth. The Litany of the Saints is sung during the Procession, which is followed by a special Mass said in the Stational Church, or if there be no Station appointed, in the church whence the Procession first started. The Litany of the Saints is one of the most efficacious of prayers. The Church makes use of it on all solemn occasions as a means for rendering God propitious through the intercession of the whole court of heaven. They who are prevented from assisting at the Procession should recite the Litany in union with holy Church: they will thus share in the graces attached to the Rogation Days. They will be joining in the supplications now being made throughout the entire world. They will be proving themselves to be Catholics.

Epistle – James v. 16‒20

Dearly beloved, confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man avails much. Elias was a man passible like us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. My brethren, if any of you err from the truth, and one convert him, he must know that he who caused a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Again it is the Apostle Saint James the Less who speaks to us in today’s Epistle, and could any words be more appropriate? One of the motives for the institution of the Rogation Days is the obtaining from God the blessing of weather favourable to the fruits of the earth, and Saint James here adduces the example of Elias to show us that prayer can stay or bring down the rain of heaven. Let us imitate the faith of this Prophet and beg of our heavenly Father to give and preserve what we require for our nourishment. Another object of the Rogations is the obtaining the forgiveness of sin. If we pray with fervour for our brethren who are gone astray, we will obtain for them the graces they stand in need of. We will perhaps never know, during this life, them whom our prayer, united with the prayer of the Church, will have converted from the error of their way, but the Apostle assures us that our charity will receive a rich reward, the mercy of God upon ourselves.

Gospel – Luke xi. 5‒13

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: “Which of you will have a friend, and will go to him at midnight, and will say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine has come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him:’ and he from within should answer and say: ‘Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give you.’ Yet if he will continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needs. And I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it will be opened. And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him?”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Could anything show us the all-powerfulness of prayer more clearly than do these words of our Gospel? By thus putting them before us, holy Church shows us the importance of the Rogation Days, since it is during them that she shows us the efficacy of supplication, which triumphs over the refusal of God Himself. The reader who has followed us thus far in our work must have observed how the passages of Holy Writ selected by the Liturgy form a continued series of instruction appropriate to each day. During these three days we are labouring to appease the anger of heaven. Could there be a more fitting occasion for our being told that God cannot resist persevering prayer? The Litanies we have been chanting in Procession are a model of this holy obstinacy or, as our Gospel terms it, this importunity of prayer. How often did we not repeat the same words! Lord, have mercy on us! Deliver us, Lord! We beseech you, hear us! The divine Paschal Lamb who is about to be offered on our altar will mediate for us. A few moments hence and He will unite and join His ever efficacious intercession with our poor prayers. With such a pledge as this we will leave the holy place feeling sure that these prayers have not been made in vain. Let us, therefore, make a resolution to keep aloof no longer from the holy practices of the Church. Let us always prefer to pray with her, than to pray by ourselves. She is the Spouse of Jesus, she is our common Mother, and she always wishes us to take part with her in the prayers she offers up. Besides, is it not for us that she makes these prayers?