February 13, 2008
Fading Ember
These current Lenten Ember Days make me mindful of the canonical requirement that postulants and candidates for Holy Orders (sic) “communicate with the Bishop personally or by letter, four times a year, in the Ember Weeks, reflecting on the individual’s academic experience and personal and spiritual development” (Canon III.4.8).
When some of us now aging more or less affirmatively were in seminary back in the mid-twentieth century, Kathleen Winsor wrote “Forever Amber” and accelerated a craze that launched the bodice-ripper boom. For the times, the movie might be said to be risqué. It antedated ratings, so you took your chances — usually without hesitation.
The Ember Days come four times a year and eventually force one’s imagination to write creatively and convincingly about academics and spirituality which some think are largely mutually exclusive. So, taking a bit of a risqué myself, I once wrote, “Dear Bishop: Did you hear about the seminarian who wrote to his Bishop and signed the letter, Forever Ember?”
He wrote back immediately, “Dear Fading Ember: That’s what you’re going to be if you don’t start convincing me that accepting you for the Postulancy was not a grave error in judgment.”
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