the Fourth Week of Advent
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Bible Dictionaries
Rogation Days
The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia
or The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day. They are days of abstinence preparatory to the great Feast of the Ascension. They are so called from the Latin word rogare, meaning to ask, and coming as they do in the early part of the year, it was customary on these days to ask God's blessing on the fruits of the earth. So that the Rogation Days bear the same relation to the plowing and sowing that Thanksgiving Day bears to the harvest. Two special prayers for this purpose, entitled "For Fruitful Seasons,—To be used on Rogation Sunday and the Rogation Days," were introduced into the American Prayer-book at its last revision in 1892. The Rogation Days were originated about the middle of the Fifth Century by Mamercus, Bishop of Vienne in Gaul, on the occasion of a great calamity that threatened his Diocese; whence arose the custom of saying the Litany and certain Psalms such as 103d and 104th, during perambulations of parishes. This method of celebrating the Rogation Days still prevails in many parishes in England.
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Miller, William James. Entry for 'Rogation Days'. The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/acd/r/rogation-days.html. 1901.
