Rogation and Love at Ascension - a new commandment

Rogation days are days of prayer and fasting in Western Christianity, observed with processions and the Litany of the Saints. The so-called major rogation is held on 25 April whilst minor rogations are held on Monday to Wednesday preceding Ascension Thursday. 

Rogation in History

Historically Rogation has been merged with pagan rites, The Christian major rogation replaced a pagan Roman procession known as Robigalia, at which a dog was sacrificed to propitiate Robigus, the deity of agricultural disease. A common feature of Rogation days in the middle ages was the ceremony of beating the bounds, in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, churchwarden, and choirboys, would proceed around the boundary of their parish and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. (This was also a feature of the original Roman festival, when revellers would walk to a grove five miles from the city to perform their rites.) But the central theme was protection, and in the Christian faith this is derived from our relationship with God. As in any healthy relationship, love is required in both directions - God loves us conditionally, but requires that we also love one another in the same way.

The word rogation comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning "to ask", which reflects the beseeching of God for the appeasement of his anger and for protection from calamities. 

Rogation and Love

It is pertinent therefore that the days preceding Ascension Thursday are rogation days, following the Sixth Sunday of Easter when we remember Jesus' commandment that we love one another as selflessly as he loved us. 

May Day Celebrations

This week sees the start of the month of May, traditionally a time of looking forward – a celebration of the summer to come. This year as the UK emerges from months of lockdown after year of restrictions, the hope is palpable as we anticipate a summer of increased freedom and optimism. 

The spring bank holiday on the first Monday in May was created in 1978, May Day itself is 1st May and is not a public holiday in England (unless it falls on a Monday). In February 2011, the UK Parliament was reported to be considering scrapping the bank holiday associated with May Day, replacing it with a bank holiday in October, possibly coinciding with Trafalgar Day (celebrated on October 21), to create a "United Kingdom Day". 

The earliest known May celebrations appeared in Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman Goddess of flower – held from 27th April to 3rd May during the Roman Republic Era. A later May festival celebrated in Germanic countries, “Walpurgis Night”, commemorates the official canonization of Saint Walpurga on 1 May 870. In Gaelic culture, the evening of April 30th was the celebration of Beltane (which translates to "lucky fire"), the start of the summer season. 

Since the 18th century, many Roman Catholics have observed May – and May Day – with various May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. 1 May is also one of two feast days of the Catholic patron saint of workers St Joseph the Worker, a carpenter, husband to Mother Mary, and surrogate father of Jesus. Replacing another feast to St. Joseph, this date was chosen by Pope Pius XII in 1955 as a counterpoint to the communist International Workers Day celebrations on May Day. 

In Oxford, it is a centuries-old tradition for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6 am to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night's celebrations. Since the 1980s some people then jump off Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell. 

The origins of the May morning celebration date from around 1505 when the Great Tower at Magdalen College was completed. The event has taken place each year in its current form since the 17th Century when "Hymnus Eucharisticus" was written by Benjamin Rogers, 17th Century Magdalen Choirmaster, musician and composer with an interesting biography! The event starts early at 6 a.m. with bells ringing, followed by the Choir singing the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of Magdalen Tower. The last section of the climb to the top of the tower is reportedly only a ladder, and not for the faint-hearted! For this reason choristers only wear short surplices over uniform rather than cassocks... 

The choir traditionally also sings a madrigal, "Now Is the Month of Maying" following prayers for the city led by the Dean of Divinity. Large crowds of both students and Oxford residents normally gather under the tower, along the High Street, and on Magdalen Bridge. Students and fellows of Magdalen College gather in the college cloisters and on top of the other towers within the college grounds. Morris dancing and folk singing has also featured in Radcliffe Square as the choir "sing in" the Spring in this unique Oxford tradition.