It has often been claimed that one of the triumphs of the post-Conciliar reform was to abolish the octave of Pentecost, and by doing so, “restore” the original character of the Easter season as a single great feast of fifty days. For example, in his apologia for the reform, Abp Bugnini writes, “The Easter season lasts fifty days, beginning with the Easter Vigil and ending with Pentecost Sunday. This is attested by the ancient and universal tradition of the Church, which has always celebrated the seven weeks of Easter as though they were a single day that ends with the feast of Pentecost. For this reason, the octave of Pentecost, which was added to the fifty days of Easter in the sixth century, has been abolished.” (The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975; p. 319 of the English edition.)
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| Folio 82r of the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD, with last prayer of the Mass of Pentecost, three prayers for Vespers, then the Mass of Pentecost Monday, the beginning of that of Tuesday. |
But this trope about the supposed fifty days of Easter was very convenient to the reformers’ mindset. It posits that everyone had always been stupidly wrong about the liturgy for well over a millennium, wantonly discarding a part of the Church’s ancient and “original” tradition to no good purpose. This being the case, it made sense for the smart and right-thinking men of the Consilium to go back behind the books and “restore” what they believed, mostly (not entirely) in good faith, to be that “original” tradition, erasing whatever they deemed necessary in the process. And thus Bugnini could write in a footnote to the text cited above, “Pentecost is the octave Sunday after Easter. An octave of an octave is illogical.” Yes, indeed: they were the first people to think logically about the liturgy for fourteen centuries…
Many years ago, the late Fr Hunwicke wrote an article about this, in which he stated, “I wonder just how securely founded in both the Bible and the patristic traditions, of West as well as East, this newly minted view of Eastertide is.” In response, I wrote a pair of articles (part 1; part 2) arguing that the answer is, “Not very.” These articles can be summarized in two basic points.
1. The same Fathers who attest to the idea of Easter as a continuous feast of fifty days ALL do so in reference to the absence, and indeed, the prohibition, of fasting during that period. This stands, of course, in contrast to the very strict fasting which they enjoined for the forty days of Lent, and most of them state this contrast very explicitly.
This alone is enough to give the lie to the claim that the post-Conciliar Rite restored the original tenor of the Easter season, since this contrast barely exists anymore. Catholics are now required to fast on a grand total of two days in Lent, and free to eat meat on 38 of the 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday inclusive.
2. Regardless of what the Church Fathers have to say on the subject, no liturgical rite, including the Novus Ordo, has ever actually celebrated the period from Easter to Pentecost as a single feast of fifty days. All liturgical traditions have always articulated a clear distinction between Easter with its octave and the rest of the Paschal season. And in point of fact, the Novus Ordo has put this distinction into even higher relief by abolishing the custom of saying the Gloria in excelsis at the Mass and the Te Deum in the Office on every day of Eastertide. (The one historical exception is Rogation Monday.)
A very nice setting in alternating chant and polyphony of the Kyrie of the Eastertide Mass setting Lux et origo.
When I wrote these two articles seven years ago, I toyed with a particular explanation of what the octave of Pentecost represents, but I couldn’t quite make it work in my head properly, and gave up on it. Yesterday, somehow, after not thinking about it for years, the solution finally came to me. My idea is that each day of the octave represents one of the seven Sacraments.
Before I explain this, a few things need to be stated. First, I am not claiming that these Masses arise as a group from a developed sacramental theology that had formally classified specific seven rites and practices together with the name “Sacraments”. That is a tradition that would not be solidified in its formal expression until much later. Nevertheless, each of them does reflect something which the Church always understood to be an essential part of the economy of grace. Perhaps it is not very important whether this is the result of a deliberate design on the part of human authors, or a happy accident guided by that Providence under which there are no real accidents. (On this point, I would like to thank my friend Gerhard Eger of Canticum Salomonis for his wise counsel.)
Second, as I explained yesterday, the octave of Pentecost is an Ember week, and imitates the arrangement of the previous Ember week, the first of Lent. Originally, Pentecost Thursday was an aliturgical day, on which no Mass was celebrated, as the Thursdays of Lent were until the early decades of the eighth century. This means that if each Mass of the Pentecost octave were to represent one of the Sacraments, one would have to be left out, or, so to speak, represented by its absence. I will explain this further below.
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| The next page of the Gellone Sacramentary (83v) after the one given above. Note that the Mass of Ember Wednesday (which begins with rubric in the fifth line) is followed immediately by that of Ember Friday (rubric in the tenth line from the bottom), and no Mass is given for Thursday. |
Third, this explanation does not require that each Sacrament be mentioned explicitly on only one of the seven days of the octave, and nowhere else within it. The modern conceit that a liturgical day must have one and only one easily graspable theme is completely foreign to the Church’s liturgical tradition. And likewise, it is not necessary for every text on each day to refer to that day’s Sacrament, or for the Sacraments to be represented in the order in which they are customarily given.
When Our Lord rose from the dead and appeared to the disciples, they did not immediately rush out into the streets to proclaim His Resurrection to the world. The Roman liturgy itself reflects this fact in the choice of its Gospel readings for Easter; neither at the vigil (Matthew 28, 1-7) nor on the feast (Mark 16, 1-7) does He appear in person. The Resurrection is solemnly proclaimed in the introit of Easter Sunday, which speaks in the person of the Lord: “I have risen, and am still with thee.” But note here the singular number, “with thee.” The Resurrection is made known to the individual believer, as the introit goes on to say, “thy knowledge is become full of wonder”, but it is not yet the time for the believer to manifest it to the world at large.
The forty days from Easter to Ascension inclusive represent, of course, the period which St Luke describes at the beginning of the Acts (1, 3-5): “(Jesus) showed himself alive (to the Apostles) after his passion… , appearing to them for forty days, and … commanded them, that they should … wait for the promise of the Father, ‘which you have heard … by my mouth. For … you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.” The “not many days hence” are represented by the pause between Ascension and Pentecost. It is only at the latter feast, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, that the public mission of the Church begins, and the Resurrection is proclaimed openly to the world.
Therefore, the seven days of Pentecost represent something substantially different from what the Easter season represents, namely, the point at which the Church begins to fulfill the Great Commission, making disciples of all nations. This is the point at which She begins to live the life of grace, engendered and nourished by the Sacraments, the means by which She will carry forth the preaching and teaching of the Faith from the first Pentecost to the end of the world. And this final period is represented in the liturgy by the long haul of weeks (more than half the year) from the feast until Advent, which begins with a Gospel about the end of the world.
Within the first week of this period, the seven Masses of the Pentecost octave represent these means, the seven Sacraments, as follows.
Pentecost Sunday, of course, represents Confirmation, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the individual believer. Confirmation is only administered after Baptism, which has already been mentioned by the vigil of Pentecost, a day which, like the vigil of Easter, has been dedicated to the celebration of Baptism since time out of mind.
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| The Sacrament of Confirmation depicted at the beginning of the first edition of the Pontifical of Pope Clement VIII, issued in 1595. |
The Mass of Pentecost Monday represents Confession. This is stated in the epistle, Acts 10, 34 and 42-48, in which St Peter says, “To (Jesus Christ) all the prophets give testimony, that by his name all who believe in him receive remission of sins.” The Gospel, John 3, 16-21, speaks clearly of sin and the need for repentance, confession and forgiveness: “Everyone that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved. But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.” But the word “confession” can also mean “a profession of belief”, and this is also reflected in the Gospel reading: “He that believeth in (the Son of God) is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged.”
The Mass of Pentecost Tuesday also represents Baptism, the entry into life as a member of Christ’s mystical body, the beginning and sine qua non of all the other Sacraments. In the Gospel, Jesus proclaims, “I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures.” The epistle unites Baptism to Confirmation as it tells of what Peter and John did in Samaria. “They were only baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then (the Apostles) laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”
The Mass of Ember Wednesday, at which the Gospel is taken from the Eucharistic discourse of John 6 (44-52), is the clearest and most obvious expression of this arrangement. “I am the bread of life. … This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. … If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.” The Eucharist is centrally placed in the middle of the week as the greatest of the Sacraments, the one which is supposed to be frequently celebrated, and on a fast day, the Ember Wednesday, since the Church has always regarded fasting as a necessary preparation for the Eucharist.
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The Institution of the Holy Eucharist, by Federico Barocci, from the Aldobrandini Chapel of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome; 1603-8. |
As noted above, following this explanation, one of the Sacraments would have to be represented by its absence, since Pentecost Thursday was originally an aliturgical day. This is the Sacrament of Holy Orders, since the thing that does not happen on such a day, the celebration of Mass, is specific to the exercise of the priesthood. But the Gospel assigned to this day when it was given a Mass, Luke 9, 1-6, fits in with this just as well, since it begins with a mention of the first priests, the twelve apostles, being sent out into the world by the Lord for the first time, “to preach the kingdom of God, and heal the sick.”
The Gospel of the Mass of Ember Friday is Luke 5, 17-26, the healing of the paralytic whose friends lower him through the roof into the house where the Lord is teaching. This represents the last rites and the Anointing of the Sick, even though such healing is also mentioned the previous day. Note that the man healed is a paralytic; not on his deathbed, as far as we can tell from the story, but very much like a man on his deathbed, incapable of moving himself.
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| The paralytic lowered through the roof, in a fresco of the 8th or 9th century preserved in the basilica of St Sabbas on the Aventine Hill in Rome. On the left side is shown the calling of Ss James and John. |
Lastly, the Mass of Ember Saturday represents Marriage, since the Gospel, Luke 4, 38-44, begins with the healing of St Peter’s mother-in-law. When I first tried to put this explanation together in my head several years ago, this seemed to be the sticking point, because the Gospel makes no direct mention of Peter’s wife. (Indeed, it is a reasonable theory that Peter was free to leave everything behind and follow the Lord because by the time they met, he was a widower.) It now seems to me to make sense for the following reasons.
We know nothing about this woman, apart from the brief mention of her here and in the synoptic parallels, but conflicts between husbands and their mothers-in-law are proverbial in all times and cultures. Notice then the words of the epistle, Romans 5, 1-5, which also provides the text of the introit: “tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.” This speaks to the virtue of patience, and the practice of charity, which are of the essence of marriage, and always necessary for its flourishing, not only between the husband and wife, but also between and within their families.
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| The Healing of St Peter’s Mother-in-law, and other stories from the same part of the Gospel of Luke and its synoptic parallels, in an engraving made in 1593 by the Flemish artist Johannes Wierix (1549 - ca. 1620). This Gospel is also read on the Thursday of the third week of Lent, as noted in the title block at top. |
I also notice that the first reading, Joel 2, 28-32, contains two references to men and women together. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy… Moreover, upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour forth my spirit.” Likewise, this passage says, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh”, referring to the fact that marriage is the joining of man and woman in the flesh. As Adam says in the time of man’s innocence, when marriage was instituted as an honorable estate, “ ‘This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.’ Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.” (Gen. 2, 23-24)
[1] Here I say “liturgical book” advisedly, because, as I have noted before, the octave is not attested in the so-called Leonine Sacramentary. But the Leonine Sacramentary is not a liturgical book, properly speaking; it is a collection of Masses, which was not designed to be used for actual celebration of the liturgy. It is also something of an unreliable narrator.
