Why this word is great
ROGATION — [Noun] A solemn supplication or prayer, especially one made during a public religious procession, or historically, a formal proposal of a law in ancient Rome. From the Latin rogātiō, from rogō ("to ask, request, beseech"). Unlike a "litany," a repetitive call-and-response prayer, or a "petition," a general and often secular request, a rogation is a singular, focused beseeching elevated to a ceremonial rite. It is the scent of damp earth rising before a procession of farmers circling rain-starved fields; the precise, sonorous weight of a senator’s voice formally proposing a law in the Curia; the collective murmur of a crowd seeking divine favor against plague. We define our deepest wants by the formal architecture we give them.