Q. I remember years ago observing Ember Days several times a year when Catholics were obliged to observe fast and abstinence. What happened to them? Why don't we have them now? (Illinois)

B. Ember Days (from an Old English word "ymbren," a season or period of time) were 12 penitential days, occurring in groups of three - Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, four times a year - in Advent, Lent, summer and fall.

While they were generally called penitential times, Ember Days were in fact marked by a combination of penance and joyful celebrations, with a variety of spiritual practices and their own proper Masses and Liturgy of the Hours.

Pope Callistus I stared the idea in the third century, basing it on ancient Jewish traditions, but also paralleling much older pagan Roman feasts of nature celebrated at times of sowing seeds, summer harvest and gathering grapes.

In other words, they were closely related to agricultural seasons and largely remain so even today where they are observed with prayer for a good crop and giving thanks for a generous harvest.

The "four seasons"( Latin "quattuor tempora") observance went through many evolutions through the centuries until Pope Gregory VII in 1078 determined the specific days on which Ember Days would be observed by the universal Church: the weeks after the third Sunday of Advent, after the first Sunday of Lent, after Pentecost, and after the feast of the Holy Cross, Sept. 14.

In his 1966 reorganization of penitential discipline in the Church, Pope Paul VI did not include Ember Days as times of fast and abstinence, and they are no longer including in the Roman MIssal.

The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar (Sacred Congregation of Rites, 1969) left it to the discretion of conferences of bishops to arrange how these days should be kept, in light of local conditions. Some countries still celebrate them, especially in rural areas. United States bishops have decided not to observe them in this country. - Father John Dietzen, 6/6/08