Advent Embertide & the Golden Mass

The Gospel from Ember Wednesday is also the Gospel during the Advent Rorate Mass

Ember Days this Advent: December 20, 22, and 23

If you are in good health, please at least fast during these three days and pray additional prayers. Remember the words from the Gospel: "Unless you do penance, you shall likewise perish" (Luke 13:5).  Ember Days are days of fasting and abstinence. Please click here for a special PDF Ember Day Manual, including reflections for the Advent Ember Days.

Note, while most Missals call for Ember Wednesday and Ember Saturday to be a day of partial abstinence, this is a rather modern practice. Partial Abstinence refers to eating meat only at the principal meal of the day and do not permit meat to be eaten as part of the collation or the frustulum. Partial abstinence started only in 1741 under Pope Benedict XIV as a concession & as part of a gradual decline of fasting. It is better to keep all Ember Days as days of complete abstinence. Ember Fridays of course are in all Missals days of complete abstinence.

From Angelus Press Daily Missal:

At the beginning of the four seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year, the Ember Days have been instituted by the Church to thank God for blessings obtained during the past year and to implore further graces for the new season. Their importance in the Church was formerly very great. They are fixed on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday: after the First Sunday of Lent for spring, after Pentecost Sunday for summer, after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14th September) for autumn, and after the Third Sunday of Advent for winter. They are intended, too, to consecrate to God the various seasons in nature, and to prepare by penance those who are about to be ordained. Ordinations generally take place on the Ember Days. The faithful ought to pray on these days for good priests. The Ember Days were until c. 1960 fastdays of obligation.

Ember Wednesday of Advent is known as the Golden Mass, which is the first time in the temporal cycle of the Liturgical Year when the Annunciation is read as the Gospel. The New Liturgical Movement states:

On this day, the Church reads the Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1, 26-38), at which point, the beginning of mankind’s redemption, the story begins to move forward. On Friday, there follows the Gospel of the Visitation. (Luke 1, 39-47) In the Breviary homily of that day, Saint Ambrose calls to our attention the first meeting of the Word Incarnate with His Forerunner, while both are still in their mothers’ wombs; “We must consider the fact that the greater one comes to the lesser, that the lesser may be aided: Mary to Elisabeth, Christ to John.” Having announced the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Visitation, the Church then anticipates on Ember Saturday the Gospel of the followed day, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. In the three Ember Day Gospels together, therefore, God becomes Incarnate, goes to the last of His prophets, and sends him forth “to prepare His way.”

Want to learn more about the history of fasting and abstinence? Check out the Definitive Guide to Catholic Fasting and Abstinence.