ROGATION DAYS

'Rogation days' are the three days (Rogation Monday, Rogation Tuesday and Rogation Wednesday) immediately before Ascension Thursday in the Christian liturgical calendar. The practice is used by Roman Catholics.
The word "Rogation" comes from the Latin verb ''rogare'', meaning "to ask," and is applied to this time of the liturgical year because the Gospel reading for the previous Sunday included the passage "Ask and ye shall receive" (Gospel of John 16:24). The Sunday itself is often called 'Rogation Sunday' as a result, and marks the start of a three-week period (ending on Trinity Sunday), when Roman Catholic and Anglican clergy do not solemnize marriages (two other such periods of marital prohibition also exists, one beginning on the first Sunday in Advent and continuing through the Octave of Epiphany, or 13 January, and the other running from Septuagesima until the Octave of Easter, the Sunday after Easter).
The faithful typically observe the Rogation days by fasting in preparation to celebrate the Ascension, and farmers often have their crops blessed by a priest at this time, which always occurs during the spring (in the Northern Hemisphere). Violet vestments are worn at the rogation litany and its associated mass, regardless of what colour was worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day. A common feature of Rogation days in former times 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.

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★ Rogation Days
John 16.24 in the Latin of the Missal uses the word petite and not rogate - thus there must be some other explanation for the word rogation.

Reference

Rogatio or Rogus Dei was used to translate the Greek letania. The litany which is sung during the rogation processions contained the oft repeated refrain Te rogamus audi nos - we beseech you hear us, thus giving us the name Rogation day.