09/13/2026
From His Excellency Steven J. Lopes
Bishop of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter
2026 Autumn (Holy Cross) Embers
Dear Friends,
Traditionally, the celebration of the Ember Days was tied to an agricultural as well as a liturgical cycle. The September Ember Days are set both by the celebration of Holy Cross Day (Sept. 14) as well as the traditional apple and grape harvest. It’s a beautiful logic: precisely at those moments throughout the year when we experience God’s bounty in nature and celebrate the salvation won for us in Christ, we set aside days for prayer, penance, and thanksgiving. It is another way the Church Year teaches us that all we have comes from the Lord, and all that we are returns to the Lord.
I am not exactly sure at what point in history the Ember Days began to be associated with vocations—both in terms of praying for vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life, as well as days on which ordinations were celebrated. But here too there is a beautiful logic: as we pause in thanksgiving for the gracious bounty of God received in this world, we are moved to think of his superabundant graciousness raising up new ministers for the altar. As our bodies are nourished by the fruit of the harvest, so our souls are nourished in the Holy Eucharist, a foretaste even now of the Eternal Banquet of heaven.
I urge you to find some way to celebrate the Ember Days in your families. Ember Friday (September 18 this year) is already a day of abstinence from meat, so a bit of penance is already built in! But what else might we do? Because these September days are closely associated with Holy Cross Day, one possibility would be to pray the Stations of the Cross or Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary as a family. Another would be to attend daily Mass on the Ember Days, offering that Mass and Holy Communion for the specific intention of new vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life. Our celebrations can vary, but the logic remains: thanksgiving opens our hearts to petition, all so that we can better and more worthily receive God’s gracious bounty.
Ember Day blessings,
Bishop Steven J. Lopes
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Prayer for Embertide
O ALMIGHTY God, look mercifully upon the world, redeemed by the blood of thy dear Son, and incline the hearts of all whom thou dost call to offer themselves for the sacred ministry of thy Church; that there may never be wanting a supply of fit men to preach thy Word, and dispense thy holy Sacraments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
