Feria Quarta Quattuor Temporum Septembris ~ II. classis
Commemoratio: Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Mercede
Readings:
- Prophecy: Amos 9:13–15
- Gospel: Mark 9:16–28
As Holy Church enters the sacred fast of the Ember Days — those ancient, seasonal rites of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving for the gifts of creation and the fruits of the earth — we are called, on this Wednesday after the Feast of the Holy Cross, to a profound recollection. We take pause amid harvest to consecrate both nature and ourselves anew to God.
In the Liturgy of the Ember Wednesday in September, the Church presents us with a vision of abundance and restoration from the Prophet Amos, and a Gospel encounter that reveals both the misery of spiritual possession and the power of faith in Christ. These two passages, though separated by centuries, converge to instruct us in the rhythm of divine justice and mercy, suffering and deliverance.
“Behold the days come…” (Amos 9:13)
In the concluding oracle of Amos, we are given a vision not of doom, but of superabundant blessing:
“Behold the days come, saith the Lord,
when the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed:
and the mountains shall drop sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.” (Amos 9:13)
St. Jerome, in his Commentary on Amos, notes that this passage should not be read merely as an agricultural promise, but as a mystical foretelling of the messianic age — the Church age — when the spiritual harvest will be so plentiful that there will be no pause between sowing and reaping. Grace shall overflow. Christ, the Sower, and Christ, the Harvester, are one. The Church Fathers saw in this a symbol of the Eucharistic abundance, the wine that gladdens hearts and flows from the chalice of the New Covenant.
Likewise, St. Augustine, in City of God (Book XX), interprets such prophecies as referring not to a return to an earthly paradise, but to the eschatological peace and plenitude that come from the reign of Christ in His saints. This is the interior restoration — “I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel…” — the soul’s liberation from sin and the replanting of virtue in the garden of the heart.
Amos ends with a promise: “They shall be planted upon their own ground, and shall no more be plucked up…” (v. 15). How fitting this is for the Ember season, when the faithful are called to pray for vocations, for the sanctification of the clergy, and for the stability of the Church’s earthly ministers — that they too may be deeply rooted, unshaken, fruitful.
“I do believe, Lord; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)
The Gospel for this Ember Wednesday presents a scene of anguish and triumph. A father, desperate for the healing of his son tormented by a mute spirit, brings him to the disciples — who fail to deliver him. Christ descends from the mount (after His Transfiguration), rebukes the faithless generation, and heals the boy, saying:
“This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” (Mark 9:29)
Here we see the Evangelical foundation for the Ember Days themselves: Jejunium et oratio. The Lord instructs us that some demonic strongholds require more than faith in speech — they demand faith in action, in sacrifice. St. John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Matthew (where the parallel account is found), emphasizes that fasting not only tames the body but elevates the soul, rendering it more fit for prayer, and more receptive to divine grace. He writes:
“Fasting is the weapon of our warfare, the adornment of the soul, the bridle of the flesh, the instructor of youth, the strength of old age.”
The boy possessed by a mute spirit can be seen, with spiritual eyes, as an image of the soul silenced by sin — unable to speak rightly to God, incapable of praise. The healing wrought by Christ is not merely a return to physical health, but a restoration of that soul to its proper order. St. Gregory the Great notes that the father’s cry — “I do believe, Lord; help my unbelief” — encapsulates the paradox of the Christian life: we believe, and yet we are weak; we trust, and yet we falter. Prayer and fasting reconcile this tension. They purify belief and make it efficacious.
Ember Days and Our Lady of Ransom
This day also bears the commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Ransom (de Mercede). Instituted to honor her miraculous aid in delivering Christian captives from Moorish slavery, this feast is not foreign to our theme. The possessed boy in the Gospel is a captive; the exiled Israelites of Amos are captives. The world — apart from grace — is in captivity to sin and Satan.
But Our Lady is the Virgo Liberatrix. She is the mother who beholds our bondage and hastens to ransom us, offering not coin but her intercession, her maternal compassion, and, ultimately, the Fruit of her womb. The Mercedarians understood well what this means: to imitate Mary in seeking the liberation of souls, to offer themselves as collateral if necessary, and to trust that, as she herself sang, “He hath put down the mighty from their thrones and hath exalted the lowly.”
A Final Exhortation
As we enter more deeply into these sacred Ember days, let us adopt the rhythm given to us by Holy Mother Church: fasting with purpose, praying with persistence, and hoping with patience.
Let us labor, like the plowman and the reaper of Amos’ vision, in the vineyard of the Lord, trusting that in due season we shall reap a harvest of grace.
Let us cast out our own “mute spirits” — the sins that silence prayer, the doubts that hinder faith — and cry with the boy’s father: Credo, Domine; adjuva incredulitatem meam.
And let us entrust all to the Mother who never ceases to ransom her children, pleading before the throne of her Son, that we may one day be planted eternally in the heavenly Jerusalem and never be plucked up again.
Oremus.
Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that by fasting we may subdue our flesh, and by prayer obtain from Thee grace to cast out the evil that clings to us, so that, delivered from captivity, we may joyfully serve Thee in liberty of spirit. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us.
Saint Jerome, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.
Amen.