Rogation Days

Days of communal procession, litany-singing, fasting, and petition for the blessing of crops and protection from calamity, observed on April 25 (Major Rogation) and on the three days before Ascension Thursday (Minor Rogation), featuring outdoor processions through fields and along parish boundaries. The Minor Rogation Days spread across the Frankish Church during the 6th–7th centuries and were incorporated into the Roman rite by Pope Leo III (d. 816); the Major Rogation on April 25, rooted in Rome's earlier Litania Maior, was fixed to that date by Gregory the Great (d. 604), who described it as an already-traditional annual solemnity.