Ember days...

"My God, I believe, I adore, I trust, and I love Thee!

I beg pardon for all those that do not believe, do not adore, 

do not trust and do not love Thee." - Fatima prayer

Ember days are the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following 

Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Cross and Feast of St Lucy. 

These dates correspond with the changing seasons in the calendar year

and are traditionally days of fasting and abstinence.  Their focus:  priests.

 An 1899 Catechism elaborates on Ember Days: 

It is the duty of the faithful to pray God to send them good priests. 
Our Lord says: “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He send forth laborers into His harvest” (Matt. ix. 38).  Remember that a priest is the salvation or the perdition of his flock. In the Old Testament we read that when other scourges were of no avail to turn the people, hardened in sin, from their evil ways, God sent upon them the heaviest scourge of all, wicked and corrupt priests. Let us therefore make it our 
continual prayer, that we may have good priests. 
The Ember days are appointed for this purpose.

Ember days for the next 12 months:

September 19, 21, 22 (2018)

December 19, 21, 22 (2018)

March 13, 15, 16 (2019) 

June 12, 14,1 5 (2019)

Fr Francis "Rocky" Hoffman, Executive Director at Relevant Radio 
has asked all to join in the Ember days devotion 
"to fast and pray for healing of the victims and 

purification of the Church in light of the scandal of sex abuse."  

Fr Rocky says:  "Prayer is augmented by fasting, 

and Holy Hours in the presence of the blessed Sacrament 

will win God's grace for the conversion of sinners."