Awesome symbolism

This year has been a great one for symbolism.

Back in April Easter Sunday fell very close to Passover. Since the original Easter happened shortly after Passover. I thought this coincidence was very fitting.

This Saturday September 18 is another joint Catholic and Jewish celebration day. For both faiths it is a day of fasting.

For Catholics (Traditional ones because around Vatican II these days were dropped from the calendar) September 15, 17 and 18 are days of fasting called Ember Days. These days were meant for fasting and public prayer and petition for the forgiveness of our sins. There are four other sets of Ember Days throughout the year. A fun rhyme was invented to help laypeople to remember when these days occurred.

"Fasting days and Emberings be

Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie."

From this little rhyme you can see that Ember Days occur after the first Sunday in Lent (usually), after Whitsun Day (or Whitsunday) which is better known as Pentecost, after Holyrood (Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which is Sept. 14, it's still not too late to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the Cross!) and after St. Lucy's Day (Dec. 13). So there are Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter times to fast. As you can probably guess, these fasting times were especially important to medieval society since they were completely at the mercy of nature and harvest each year. (Maybe in modern times we should have four times a year to fast and pray for our government and economy since we're at their mercy?)

So, each set of Ember Days includes a Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Wednesday and Friday are traditional fasting times for Christians. To this day, observant Orthodox Christians fast on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. Friday, also observed by traditional Catholics, was the day of the week Jesus gave his life for our sins. Wednesday, only observed today by the Orthodox, was the day of the week Judas betrayed Our Savior. Saturday is a fasting day in memory of Jesus being placed in the tomb.

In another awesome coincidence, the extra day of fasting on Saturday this week coincides with Yom Kippur, the most solemn fast and petition for the forgiveness of sins in the Jewish calendar. 

Maybe this symbolism of the two fasting days happening on the same day is a call to prayer and fasting?

What's to come? If you look at a Jewish calendar around the December 15, 17, and 18 Ember Days, you'll see that Asera Be'Tevet falls on December 16th. This day is a day of fasting in remembrance for the day Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem.