Rogation Sermon | 9 May 2021

Jesus says: “…the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” (John 15.16)

The idea that God wants us to ask for things in prayer is what lies behind the Christian tradition of Rogation Sunday and the Rogation Days that then follow leading up to Ascension Day on Thursday. Rogation is all about asking: the word comes from the Latin ‘to ask’: we are encouraged to ask God’s blessing, ask for God’s help and goodness for those we live amongst; and as a Cathedral we ask and pray especially for all who live in our Cathedral parish.

Traditionally Rogation walks and Rogation prayers were for God’s blessing on the crops and to ensure a good harvest. The practice goes back to very early in the Christian era, taking over a Roman spring festival of walking through the fields to pray that the crops be spared from mildew and blight. If there had been a calamity, rogation was also a time to give thanks for God’s deliverance. A Bishop in Gaul ordered his whole diocese to go out in procession after it had been spared from a series of volcanic eruptions.

Around the time St Thomas’ Church was first built - what is now the East End of this Cathedral - liturgical texts tell us that Rogation processions in this country had parishioners carrying banners representing Biblical characters, with a dragon at the front and the banner of a lion representing Christ in the middle, followed by images of saints carried by the rest of the congregation. (This must have been a wonderful display - something perhaps to look into reviving for next year). Also the ‘rogations,’ the requests to God, were often sung if there was a choir taking part in the procession, or a cantor to lead the Litany. It might have been at this period that the tradition started of literally ‘beating the bounds’ - with the boys of the parish carrying willow branches or long reeds to beat on the ground as they walked. In some accounts the boys were bumped themselves, or swung around the cornerposts ‘so as to impress the boundaries upon their youthful memories’.

At the Reformation in this country, the practice of ‘processions’ was suppressed, but parish “perambulations” were still encouraged! In the time of Elizabeth I, a Royal Injuction ordered the perambulation of every parish at Rogationtide and two special Homilies for Rogation Days were printed so clergy could be sure to explain to their congregations what this was all about. One of these homilies say how: ‘in our walks on these days’ people have occasion to behold the fields and countryside and to ask God in prayer for their fruitfulness and for seasonable weather. Also as people go about their parish boundaries, they are reminded to be content rather than greedy, and not to “covet or contentiously strive” for what belongs to their next door neighbour or their next door parish. In addition, a wonderfully practical point is made about noticing the need for road repairs. “Your highways should be considered in your walks, to understand where to bestow your days’ works according to the good statutes provided for the same.” Tudor law required labourers to give four days work each year to the repair and maintain the roads of the parish. So the Rogation walk helped people notice what needed doing. “It is a good deed of mercy to amend the dangerous and noisome ways, whereby thy poor neighbour, sitting upon his silly weak beast, foundereth not in the deep thereof and so the market be the worse served for discouraging poor victuallers to resort thither for the same cause.”

I think we will be aware, those of us going after this service to walk our parish boundary, how much our local victuallers – our cafes and restaurants, and our local business in

general – will need our prayers as they reopen next week, that the market also – our local retailers – will be served well in this area. We pray too that many will resort hither to this cathedral also as we reopen again for visitors and tourists once more, as well as for those coming to pray and worship. The Cathedral shop will be open and there will be so much going on once again, we hope, that will bring people into this place. But it’s good that we can sometimes go out from here together and be seen together. Being out and about with our eyes open and our thoughts tuned to prayer, at Rogation especially, links this cathedral more with the reality of the world and the city and the community it serves. Even if you cannot join us today for Beating the Bounds, perhaps you could find the opportunity for a Rogation walk of your own this week: simply taking time as you walk to ask God’s blessing for the homes and shops and schools and cafés and businesses you pass.

The core meaning of rogation is about asking, but it is also about generosity, because we are not simply asking for ourselves but for others in our parish and for all on whom we depend for our food and wellbeing. We are praying ‘as well for others as for ourselves.’ God longs for us to ask as a way of showing we are receptive to that blessing and willing help those around us to receive blessing too. Once we become too self-sufficient, we forget how to ask and how to trust. Rogation reminds us that God longs to bless us and to bless the world through us.

‘Ask and you will receive’, Jesus tells us. But that Rogation homily from the time of Elizabeth I suggests that Rogation also demonstrates the truth of: give and you will receive. If we give to others, then God will give to us: or as Jesus says elsewhere in the Gospel, ‘Give and it will be given to you.’ (Luke 6.38)

I’ll end by quoting from that Rogation homily – as it has a lot to tell us in our Season of Generosity about the grace of giving - how we become more generous of heart as we become more generous in giving:

“...God hath promised to open the windows of heaven upon the liberal and righteous, that they shall want nothing. He will repress the devouring caterpillar which should devour your fruits. He will give you peace and quiet to gather in your provision, that ye may sit every one under his own vine quietly without fear of enemies to invade you. He will give you not only food to feed on, but stomachs and good appetites to take comfort of your fruits, whereby in all things ye may have sufficiency. Finally he will bless you with all manner abundance in this transitory life, and endue you with all manner benediction in the next world, in the kingdom of heaven, through the merits of our Lord and Saviour. To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour everlastingly. Amen.”

Canon Jo Spreadbury