Agriculture...

Hello All,

Things are going to be a little spotty for the next month or so.  I work in the Ag industry and spring is a very busy time for us, with spraying, planting and early season maintenance.  I would like to ask a couple of things from you and then I have a message  to pass along.

1.  Please pray for the safety of the farmers, their employees and those who work in support of them, especially those who, like me, are in the fields every day making sure that the ground is fit for planting.

2.  Please pray the Rogation prayers from the Old Calendar.  I know that many of you don't follow the old liturgical calendar, but please seek out those prayers and please pray the Rogation prayers.  Rogation days were meant for asking God's mercy with regard to the crops of the land.

The first Rogation, the Greater Litanies, has been compared to the ancient Roman religious festival of the Robigalia a ritual involving prayer and sacrifice for crops held on April 25.  The second set of Rogation days, the Lesser Litanies or Rogations, introduced about AD 470 by Bishop Mamertus of Vienne and eventually adopted elsewhere, are the three days (Rogation Monday, Rogation Tuesday and Rogation Wednesday) immediately before Ascension Thursday in the Christian liturgical calendar. The term, most frequently encountered in Roman Catholic and Anglican circles, is rarely used today.  The word "Rogation" comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning "to ask," and was applied to this time of the liturgical year because the Gospel reading for the previous Sunday included the passage "Ask and ye shall receive" (Gospel of John 16:24).

 The faithful typically observed the Rogation days by fasting in preparation to celebrate the Ascension, and farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time, which always occurs during the spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Violet vestments are worn at the rogation litany and its associated Mass, regardless of what colour was worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day. A common feature of Rogation days in former times was the ceremony of "beating the bounds", in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, churchwarden, and choirboys, would proceed around the boundary of their parish and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. This was also known as 'Gang-day'.

I do know that it's a little early, but everything is early this year.  Thanks.