Ember days are days of prayer, fasting and ordination. It is a time to pray for bishops, priests and deacons, and - more recently - all Christians in their vocation. Some churches make it a common practice - it used to be a universal practice - to ordain persons to the clergy on those days.

The Ember Days occur on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of what I will call the "Ember Week." There are four Ember Weeks per year. They are:

1. The week following the third Sunday in Advent, or the week following the feast of St. Lucy (December 13);
2. The week following the first Sunday in Lent;
3. The week between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday;
4. The week following the Feast of the Holy Cross (September 14).

Some claim that the name may come from the Anglo-Saxon ymb-ren - a circuit or revolution; something that recurs. And some claim that the word comes from the German quatember, which is a corruption of the Latin quatuor tempora - "Four Times."

The following mnemonic was once used to remember when the Ember Days fell:

Translated into English:

I've taken the liberty of translating more loosely for the purpose of rhyme: