These days are to be used to pray for vocations to Holy Orders – for those men called to be priests or deacons. We pray also for those who are already ordained – for our parish clergy, for our bishop, and for the Holy Father. Another aspect of the Ember Days is for us to give thanks for the earth and for the good things God gives us – for our food, for the rain and the sunshine, for all the blessings of life through nature. And because of that, it’s a time when we remind ourselves to treat creation with respect, and not waste the things God has given us.
Of course, we pray for all this throughout the year, but the Ember Days bring all this to mind in a special way, so that we can concentrate our prayers during the four periods of time throughout the year.
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God: that the coming festival of our redemption may obtain for us the comfort of thy succour in this life, and in the life to come the reward of eternal felicity; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.