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Of all the liturgical treasures of Holy Roman Catholic Church, perhaps the feast of Pentecost Sunday is the richest, at least in the pre-Conciliar Vetus Ordo. In the Church’s traditional Roman Rite, Pentecost, like Easter, has a Saturday Vigil which includes the blessing of baptismal water. This was and is also the time to baptize and confirm those who did not receive the foundational sacrament at Easter. It is followed by an Octave, during which we sing the stunning Sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus, and the priest recites in the Canon a proper Communicantes and Hanc igitur. Also during the Pentecost Octave we observe the Spring Ember Days on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Under the spell of the Consilium’s leadership, Paul VI did away with most of Pentecost’s liturgical weight, which is hard to square with what the Council Fathers’ command in Sacrosanctum Concilium, namely, that no reform should be made unless the true good of the people required it and that changes must flow organically with what tradition had handed down (SC 23).
To understand better the beautiful Feast of Pentecost, it is good to look at it through the lens of the ancient Jewish parallel feast. This provides us with some context.
Pentecost brings to completion the Jewish Spring Festival of “Shavuot… Weeks”. This is one of the three great annual obligatory pilgrimage festivals. Jewish festivals looked backward to an event in salvation history and forward to something not yet accomplished. At Shavuot, the Jews commemorated the descent of God’s Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, wreathed in fire, fifty days after the Exodus (Ex 19). They also looked forward to the return someday of God’s presence in the Temple, the fiery glory cloud. The Feast of Unleavened Bread at Passover continued with the presentation of the bikkurim in the Temple, the spring first-fruits. This continued in the great first fruits festival Shavuot, fifty days after its commencement. At Passover, there were presented to God two sheaves the first barley (first fruits starting) which were waved as an offering. At Pentecost there was a wave offering of two loaves (first fruits completed). Early Jewish sources describe the pattern of the waving in what amounts to an anticipation of the sign of the Cross.
Pentecost was the fulfillment of the Jewish expectation of the return of God’s presence in the Temple. Christ, the true Temple, had already visited and taught in the earthly Temple of Jerusalem. Now the Holy Spirit would fill the Temple.
There is some discussion about the place where the Apostles were when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
The Greek says in Acts 2:2 that the mighty rush filled the “house” (Greek oikos), which on the surface suggests the “upper room” where they had been for Passover. However, in Acts 7:47 we read about how Solomon built a “house” (oikos) for God, which means the Temple. In Greek, the usual world for “temple” is hierón or naós for inner sanctuary. As for the time of day, it was the “third hour” or 9 AM (Acts 2:15), the time of the first of two daily tamid sacrifices of a spotless lamb in the Temple. However, in Acts 3:1 we find Peter and John “going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour”, which was 3 PM. This is the hour of the second of the tamid took place. It seems that Peter and John were observing the hours of the tamid sacrifices and they were in the Temple, but not just them. Acts 2:1 says they were “all together in one place”. Furthermore, at the sound of the rushing of the Spirit, “the multitude came together”, which is when people from across the ancient world heard their own tongues being spoken, and “about three thousand souls” were baptized (Acts 2:41). It would be hard to have a multitude come together and to baptize 3000 people in the upper room of the Passover. In fact, they were probably in the Temple at the hour of the morning tamid when the Holy Spirit came, which would be the clear fulfillment of the return of God’s presence and the resolution of what was foreshadowed when God descended in fire on Mount Sinai to write the Decalogue of the Old Law on tablets of stone. This time, the New Law was written by tongues of fire on hearts. The 3000 souls added were indeed “first fruits” of the Spirit’s harvest festival following up the Risen Christ’s own first fruit wave bikkurim offering from the Resurrection to the Ascension.
In Acts 2 Peter addressed the crowds and unfolded to them the ramifications of what had been done to Christ and the consequences of his Resurrection in the light of the descent of the Holy Spirit like illuminating tongues of fire. The darkness of their minds and hearts was dispelled as their eyes were opened and they saw and they stepped into the light of the Light from Light.
The Collect for Pentecost Sunday sings as follows:
Deus, qui hodierna die
corda fidelium Sancti Spiritus illustratione docuisti:
da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta sapere,
et de eius semper consolatione gaudere.
This ancient prayer, from at least the time of the Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis and probably older, survived the Consilium’s expert scalpels to live in the Novus Ordo only as the Collect for a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit. It is also recited after the Veni Sancte Spiritus.
That sapio (infinitive sapere) means firstly “to taste, savor; to have a taste or flavor of a thing”. Logically, it is extended to “to know, understand a thing”. It is often paired in literature with the adverb recte, “rightly”, when wisdom is indicated. Think of the English word “insipid” (the sap- shifts to sip-) for something without flavor as well as a person without taste or wisdom. A homo sapiens is someone of “good taste”, who knows the savor of life, as it were. Sapiens is thus connected with Greek sophos, or “wise”, or “sage” which is also a savory herb. Sapientia, “Wisdom”, is a figure for the Holy Spirit as well as one of His Gifts. The Holy Spirit, Parácletus, is our Counselor, leading us rightly, and He is Comforter, bringing us consolation.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who on this day
taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant to us, in the same Spirit to know/savor things that are right,
and to rejoice always in His consolation.
That hodierna die connects this oration directly with similar language on Easter, showing the continuity between them.
I love that play of meanings in sapere. We know and we savor what we know. We relish what is right. We taste and see. Savvy?
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).
The theme of sight is also thrilling within the Collect. The Holy Spirit brought illustratio to the “hearts of the faithful”. The Apostles were believers but the multitude there were not, at first. They came to believe. They became part of the fidelium as their hearts were illuminated by grace from the Holy Spirit and teaching from Peter informed their minds. In ancient rhetoric descriptive speech brought vivid images to the “eyes” of the listeners. This vivid presentation, such as what Spirit-breathed Peter thunders – in the Temple – imparts evidentia (note the root – vid– “to see”) in his argument, illustratio (note the root – lux – “light”). They had to know something before they could believe it. As they were illuminated, they believed. When they believed, they then understood the deeper meaning of what Peter explained and, with the movement of grace, they became believers in the deeper sense. As we hear in Acts 2, they were “added”. There is an Augustinian concept expressed in Latin, nisi credideritis non intelligetis… unless you will have first believed you will not understand.
With illustratione ringing in your ear, we are then struck with consolatione. Consolatio is the Third Person of the Trinity, just as He is Illustratio. The Gospel reading today say in John 14:26s:
Paráclitus autem Spíritus Sanctus, quem mittet Pater in nómine meo, ille vos docébit ómnia … But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything….
In the Latin Vulgate the Lord calls the Holy Spirit the “Paraclitus”, from the Greek parákletos (para “beside” + kaleo “call”), which is Counselor, Advocate, one who stands by you and intercedes. In Matthew 2:18 and 5:4 we have two uses of the passive form of the same verb παρακαλῶ. Both times, the context is mourning. The meaning is ‘to be comforted’. The Hebrew equivalent of parakletos, menahhem, means “comforter”. The RSV version translates parákletos as “Counselor”. The KJV says “Comforter”. Parákletos is a multi-layered term and title. Across many different translations, “Comforter” is strongly represented. English “Comforter” is rooted in Latin fortis, “strong”. That points to the role of the Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. A “Counselor” or Advocate” makes you and your case stronger. The Spirit of Truth is the Strengthener, the Fortifier. Hence, it was to the advantage of the disciples that the Lord should depart and the Fortifier Comforter Advocate would come! It is to our advantage that we can be confirmed with the Holy Spirit as so many are at this time around Pentecost.
You would do well in this grace-filled time of the Octave of Pentecost, to make a review of the effects of the Sacrament Confirmation. There are good points in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as many other venerable and still useful compendia. I’m certain that you will find them both illuminating and consoling.