Rogation Days
rogation days
(Latin: rogare, to ask)
25 April, and the three days before the Ascension, observed to appease God’s wrath, ask protection, and invoke a blessing on the harvest. They were known in England as Gang Days and Cross Week. The Litany of the Saints is chanted in the procession, and the Rogation Mass follows. The older procession of 25 April, called therefore Major Litany, Christianized a pagan procession in honor of the god Robigus. The institution of the others, adopted in Rome under Pope Leo III as Minor Litanies, is ascribed to Saint Mamertus, Archbishop of Venice who, c.475, ordered processions with special prayers because of calamities which were afflicting the country. Rogation days were dropped from the Church’s calendar in the reform of 1970, but since 1988 have been revived.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Rogation Days
Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God’s anger at man’s transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest, known in England as “Gang Days” and “Cross Week”, and in Germany as Bittage, Bittwoche, Kreuzwoche. The Rogation Days were highly esteemed in England and King Alfred’s laws considered a theft committed on these days equal to one committed on Sunday or a higher Church Holy Day. Their celebration continued even to the thirteenth year of Elizabeth, 1571, when one of the ministers of the Established Church inveighed against the Rogation processions, or Gang Days, of Cross Week. The ceremonial may be found in the Council of Clovesho (Thorpe, Ancient Laws, I, 64; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, III, 564).
The Rogation Days are the 25th of April, called Major, and the three days before the feast of the Ascension, called Minor. The Major Rogation, which has no connexion with the feast of St. Mark (fixed for this date much later) seems to be of very early date and to have been introduced to counteract the ancient Robigalia, on which the heathens held processions and supplications to their gods. St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) regulated the already existing custom. The Minor Rogations were introduced by St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, and were afterwards ordered by the Fifth Council of Orleans, which was held in 511, and then approved by Leo III (795-816). This is asserted by St. Gregory of Tours in “Hist. Franc.”, II, 34, by St. Avitus of Vienne in his “Hom. de Rogat.” (P.L., LVIII, 563), by Ado of Vienne (P. L., CXXIII, 102), and by the Roman Martyrology. Sassi, in “Archiepiscopi Mediolanenses”, ascribes their introduction at an earlier date to St. Lazarus. This is also held by the Bollandist Henschen in “Acta SS.”, II, Feb., 522. The liturgical celebration now consists in the procession and the Rogation Mass. For 25 April the Roman Missal gives the rubric: “If the feast of St. Mark is transferred, the procession is not transferred. In the rare case of 25 April being Easter Sunday [1886, 1943], the procession is held not on Sunday but on the Tuesday following”.
The order to be observed in the procession of the Major and Minor Rogation is given in the Roman Ritual, title X, ch. iv. After the antiphon “Exurge Domine”, the Litany of the Saints is chanted and each verse and response is said twice. After the verse “Sancta Maria” the procession begins to move. If necessary, the litany may be repeated, or some of the Penitential or Gradual Psalms added. For the Minor Rogations the “Ceremoniale Episcoporum”, book II, ch. xxxii, notes: “Eadem serventur sed aliquid remissius”. If the procession is held, the Rogation Mass is obligatory, and no notice is taken of whatever feast may occur, unless only one Mass is said, for then a commemoration is made of the feast. An exception is made in favour of the patron or titular of the church, of whom the Mass is said with a commemoration of the Rogation. The colour used in the procession and Mass is violet. The Roman Breviary gives the instruction: “All persons bound to recite the Office, and who are not present at the procession, are bound to recite the Litany, nor can it be anticipated”.
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ROCK, The Church of Our Fathers, III (London, 1904), 181; DUCHESNE, Chr. Worship (tr. London, 1904), 288; BINTERIM, Denkwurdigkeiten; AMBERGER, Pastoraltheologie, II, 834; VAN DER STEPPEN, Sacra Liturgia, IV, 405; NILLES, Kalendarium Manuale (Innsbruck, 1897).
FRANCIS MERSHMAN Transcribed by Joseph E. O’Connor
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Rogation Days
(Lat. rogare, to beseech) are the three days immediately before the festival of Ascension. About the middle of the 5th century, Mamertus, bishop of Vienna, upon the prospect of some particular calamities that threatened his diocese, appointed that extraordinary prayers and supplications should be offered up with fasting to God for averting those impending evils upon the above mentioned days; from which supplications (called by the Greeks litanies, by the Latins rogations) these days have ever since been called Rogation days. The calamity referred to was a terrible fire which raged in the city of Vienne, Dauphiny, and which suddenly went out in answer to the prayers of the bishop. The same result followed his supplications on the occurrence of a second great fire. Such is the assumed miracle (Thompson, Philos. of Magic, 2, 291). At the time of the Reformation these days were continued for the purpose of retaining the perambulation (q.v.) of the circuits of parishes. In the Church of England it has been thought fit to continue the observance of these days as private fasts. There is no office, or order of prayer, or even a single collect, appointed for the Rogation days in the Prayer book; but there is a homily appointed for Rogation week, which is divided into four parts, the first three to be used on the three Rogation days, and the fourth on the day when the parish make their procession. The days were called in Anglo-Saxon gang daegas; the old form of the name, gang days, still lingering in the north of England. There was considerable opposition to the observance of rogations during the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost–a time which was one continued festival in the early Church. The Eastern Church does not keep Rogationtide, and even drops the fasts of Wednesday and Friday during the fifty days. See Bingham, Christian Antiq. 21, 2, 8; Blunt, Dict. of Theol. s.v.; Eden, Theol. Dict. s.v.; Hook, Church Dict. s.v.