As I grew up in a Midwestern U.S. farming community, I learned to expect a special prayer for spring rain on Rogate Sunday, the fifth Sunday after Easter. This seemed just common sense, since April to May was the time for tillage and planting of spring crops. Many years later I learned this was a vestige of a tradition dating back to 470 A.D. Days of penitence and prayer, including a procession outside the church, were historically observed on April 25 (St. Mark’s Day on the historic church calendar), and on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord.
These were called Rogation Days and, like Rogate Sunday, the name is derived from the Latin verb rogare, which means to ask or pray. The appointed Gospel reading for the last Sunday before Ascension is John 16:23-30, in which Jesus tells His disciples (verse 23), “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.” There are two Greek words translated as “ask” in the passage. The first, ἐρωτάω, in context, means “to ask a question”, while the second, αἰτέω, means “to petition or request”. “In that day”, after Jesus has ascended to the Father, the Holy Spirit will answer our questions of faith through the inspired Scriptures while we may petition the Father for all of our material and spiritual needs in the name of Jesus. See my May 22, 2022 sermon.
The farmer’s prayer typically is for just enough rain at just the right time to assure a bountiful harvest. In Venezuela the Rogate Sunday petition often is to hold off a little on the rain. Venezuela is located just north of the Equator, so daily temperatures vary only slightly throughout the year. As a rule, it is cooler in the mountains (many mountain towns have both the altitude and daily high temperature posted on the city limit sign) and hotter in the lowlands. However, there is a dry season (which usually runs from mid-December to mid-April) and a rainy season (usually, from late April to mid-November). Average yearly rainfall amounts in the lowlands and plains range from a semiarid 430 millimeters (17 inches) in the western part of the Caribbean coastal areas to more than 1,000 millimeters (39 inches) in the Orinoco Delta. We live on the western plains, where there difference between the dry and rainy seasons is especially sharp. During the rainy season, the prairie turns into a network of wetlands and the cowboys who work the region’s large ranches often wear rubber-soled boots.
April and May of this year have proved true to form for us, with many days of torrential rain and strong winds. More frequent, prolonged power outages probably are a result of this and we are grateful for our solar panels and a pedal-powered emergency backup system, courtesy of K-Tor.
Mother’s Day and the gift of life
In Venezuela, Mother’s Day is a secular holiday celebrated on the second Sunday in May, as it is in the United States. This year’s date, May 8, coincided with the third Sunday after Easter. The appointed Gospel reading, John 16:16-22, was quite appropriate for the occasion.
Jesus says in verses 20-22, in reference to His death, resurrection and ascension: “ Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Many prophetic texts of the Old Testament also compare the tribulations that the people of God must endure before the arrival of the Messiah to the pain followed by joy of childbirth: Micah 4:9-10; Jeremiah 13:21; Isaiah 21:2-3; 26:16-21; 66:7-14). Read the sermon text in English here.
Friday, May 27, was the day after the actual Ascension Day (40 days after Easter, but we celebrated the Ascension on Sunday, May 29). That is when we began, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, a series of consultations with pregnant women of the community, offering them moral support and advice. An opening devotion is my responsiblity, and I began with prayer on meditation on classic pro-natalist texts. That is to say, texts which explain that children are a blessing from God, life begins at conception and all human life is precious to God at all states of development.
The Lord says to the prophet in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Likewise, Psalm 139:13-14, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
Our lives belong to God by the order of creation. As He directly formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him, He gives the gift of life to all people using human parents as His instruments. That is why the first of all commandments in Scripture is “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:27). Marriage was instituted by God before the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, and procreation was to result from God’s blessing.
Every new life also belongs to God by the order of redemption, because Christ died for the sins of all human beings. St. Paul writes in Galatians 1:15, “But when God who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone.” Before the Lord appeared to the former persecutor of Christians on the road to Damascus, He had ordained his birth and influenced his entire life, his education, his intellectual development in such a manner as to enable him later to become a chosen instrument.
Finally, we have St. Luke’s account of the Visitation, when Mary, who had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, came to the house of Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is it granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Luke 1:42-44). The evangelist says that it was the Holy Spirit that moved Elizabeth to prophecy that Mary’s child, already growing in her womb, would be delivered as a healthy baby and would deliver the entire world from sin. And her unborn child shared in her joy.
O Author of life, who did not reject our first parents in their disobedience, but gave them the hope of salvation in Eve’s Offspring. Turn the hearts of all who believe they hold the power of life and death, and who trust in the choices of the sinful heart over the promises of God. Bring them into the knowledge of what is good, that they may know the profound value of all human life, which You have created and redeemed, and the everlasting truth of salvation in the Offspring who has crushed Satan’s head forever; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.
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