Rogation Sunday
What is Rogation Day?
Prayers in a churchyard
The Easter Season is a period of time that continues to unfold and reveal the meaning of Jesus' resurrection - what it meant for the disciples and what it means for us. Each Sunday we hear readings that develop this meaning as we see the eyes of the disciples being opened, and the other holy days that are connected to the Easter season reveal even more about what Jesus has done for us through the resurrection.
We are fast approaching Ascension Day, forty days after Easter, when we celebrate Jesus' ascension to the Father. Since Easter, he has been making appearances to his disciples, but he also told us that this would only be for a time before he departed from them for good, but with the promise that he would send The Advocate or the Holy Spirit ten days later, on Pentecost.
The three days before Ascension Day are known as the Rogation Days which begin on Rogation Sunday, the Fifth Sunday after Easter.
The word Rogation comes from the Latin word rogare, meaning, "to ask," and has always been a period of focused prayer and fasting with a specific emphasis on praying for the planting of crops, for rural life, and for the life of the parish and the homes and lives of those in it.
As the story goes, around the year 470 in France there were a series of natural disasters that struck a particular region of the country, and which threatened to decimate the crops of those who lived there.
The Archbishop proclaimed days of special prayer (rogation) and fasting, eventually culminating in the people of this area walking or processing around the boundaries of their fields as the clergy blessed them and asked God for His protection over them.
Beating the Bounds on Rogation Day
Rogation Processions around fields and around the peripheries of parishes have been a long-standing part of our Christian heritage, and our heritage as Anglicans more specifically, but as many people stopped relying on the land around them in their own community to provide their food, these processions and prayers fell out of favour.
One custom, still alive in some parishes, is for the congregation to "beat the bounds" of their parish by walking the boundaries of the parish and being a part of the blessing of all the crops, fields, homes, and gardens along the way (see the attached pictures).
While this would be a bit too long of a walk for us here at the Anglican Parish of St. Mary & St. John, we will be praying some blessings on our gardens and the crops and fields in our communities at the end of our services this Sunday.
If you have any garden tools or seeds that are to be planted, please feel invited to bring them along!
