What Are The Fifty Days of Easter?

The suppression of the octave of Pentecost is justified by a claim and its corollary. The claim is that the symbolism of the Easter season lasting for fifty days, in keeping with the name “Pentecost”, the Greek word for “fiftieth”, is very important. The corollary is that by adding an octave to Pentecost, and thus extending the season to 56 days, something important was lost. (Perhaps those who accept this claim would phrase things differently, and say that with the addition of the octave, more was lost than was gained.)

The dove of the Holy Spirit, depicted on the inside of the roof of the civory of the Blessed Sacrament chapel in Pusey House, Oxford, England. Each banderole has the name of one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit written on it in Latin; medieval liturgical commentators often referred these seven gifts to the seven Masses of Pentecost week. (Image courtesy of Dr Robin Ward.) 

For reference, we turn once again to Abp Bugnini’s apologia for the reform (The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975), and find a lengthy footnote specifically about this change on pp. 319-20 of the English edition. It contains this approving citation of the memorandum issued in 1948 by a commission which Pius XII had appointed to study questions related to the reform of the liturgy.

“(Various) facts and liturgical data (about Pentecost) have led not a few scholars to ask whether it would not be more appropriate to return to the ancient and original practice, that is, to regard, and celebrate, Pentecost Sunday as the true and real end of the Easter season, … and therefore to have the courage to do away with the octave. A further advantage would be to relieve the summer period of the themes of Pentecost and restore its ancient form. … the single day celebration of Pentecost would make it stand out more clearly, for it would be seen as undoubtedly the end of the entire Easter cycle.” (my emphases)

The claim is thus made that the one-day Pentecost is “more appropriate”, “the ancient and original practice”, in an age when “ancient” and “original” were words to conjure with among liturgists, and to label anything with them was to say that it was better by definition. To do away with the octave is both “courageous” (not “audacious” or “foolhardy”) and advantageous. It would make the feast stand out more clearly. (Apparently, celebrating it for a week rather than a day made it stand out less clearly.)

Reading this footnote the other day, while I was writing my article about the octave of Pentecost and the sacraments, it occurred to me that I ought to investigate how this is expressed in the texts of the liturgy. For example, the post-Communion prayer of the first Sunday of Advent contains a citation of Psalm 47, 10, which is also used as the introit on the feast of the Purification; the same words mark the beginning of the Church’s preparation for Christmas, and the last day of the Christmas season. The epistle of the first Sunday of Lent, 2 Corinthians 6, 1-10, quotes Isaiah 49, 8, the beginning of the epistle (verses 8-15) of Sitientes Saturday, the last day of Lent properly so-called. What, then, does the liturgy do to speak of this very important theme of the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost as “a single day” (item Bugnini), with the latter as its end?

The answer is, Nothing.

Among the Mass chants for Pentecost week, two offertories, those of Monday and Tuesday, are repeated from Easter Tuesday and Wednesday respectively; the reason for this repetition and displacement is not obvious. Many of the chants of Easter week clearly refer to the Roman station churches at which the Masses were originally celebrated. As I explained on Wednesday, the stations of Pentecost week are arranged on a very different principle from those of Easter, and the Masses make almost no reference to them.

A page of a gradual dated to the very end of the 10th century, with the Masses of Pentecost Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. (The rubric “Feria V” in the sixth line up is a mistake for “Feria VI”.) In the fifth line down, the rubric indicates that the offertory is Portas caeli; one was evidently supposed to know that it is borrowed from Easter Tuesday. (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 339; CC BY-NA 4.0)

Among the Scriptural readings, the epistle of Pentecost Monday (Acts 10, 42-48) continues from that of Easter Monday (verses 37-43). There are no other such connections, which is not surprising, since the Masses of Easter are purely festive, while half of Pentecost week is taken up with the Ember days. And of course, these few references to Easter occur after the very important fifty days. Likewise, the one Scriptural reference to the fifty-day period is in the second prophecy of Ember Saturday, from Leviticus 23, which describes the Pentecost of the Old Testament.

Among the euchological texts of Pentecost (the Mass prayers and prefaces) as it is currently celebrated according to the Missal of St Pius V, there is not a single reference to Easter or to the fifty days. But there are many prayers and prefaces in the ancient sacramentaries which are no longer used, so this is the point in a research project where I start going through my large collection of word-searchable pdfs, to see if such references did once have currency. And by looking for the words “fifty / fiftieth” and “Easter” (i.e. “Pascha” and its derivative adjective “paschalis”) among the prayers of Pentecost, I discovered something very interesting indeed. [1]

There are very few prayers for Pentecost of any sort in any western rite which refer to “fifty” or “Easter”. But there are three in the oldest Roman sacramentary, known as the Old Gelasian: a collect, a preface and a post-Communion, each of which belongs to a different Mass. [2]

The collect is one of two for the Mass of Pentecost Sunday, and reads as follows:

“Omnípotens sempiterne Deus, qui Paschále sacramentum quinquaginta diérum voluisti mysterio continéri: praesta, ut gentium facta dispersio divisióne linguárum, ad unam confessiónem tui sancti nóminis, caelesti múnere congregétur. Per. – Almighty everlasting God, who willed that the Paschal sacrament be contained within the mystery of fifty days; grant that the scattering of the nations wrought by the division of tongues may be gathered by the gift of heaven to the one confession of Thy holy name.” [3]

Folio 74 of the Sacramentary of Drogo, bishop of Metz (and a son of Charlemagne), ca. 850 AD. In the middle we see the rubric “The prayer of (i.e. said after the tract from) Psalm 41 ‘Sicut cervus’ ”. This is followed by the prayer which is said before the blessing of the font in the Missal of St Pius V, then the prayer given just above. (I have cropped the pages to remove the large amount of empty space around the text, and joined the upper part of the other side of the folio to the bottom so that the whole prayer can be seen. The division is at the words “ut gentium facta / dispersio.” Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 9428)

(This is also the only reference to “fifty days” that I have been able to find among these texts.)

However, in the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, which predates the Old Gelasian by about 200 years (ca. 550 AD), this prayer is not assigned to Pentecost Sunday, but to the Mass of the vigil. This manuscript is something of an unreliable narrator, and if this were the only such attestation, we could reasonably doubt whether this was its original placement. But in the oldest version of the Gregorian Sacramentary (ca. 780), it is also assigned to the vigil of Pentecost, as one of five alternative prayers to be said after the tract Sicut cervus, before the blessing of the font begins. This confirms that the vigil was indeed its original place. (Noted also in the image above of the Sacramentary of Drogo, ca. 850 A.D.)

Likewise, the Gelasian post-Communion to which I referred above, which asks that the “perfection of the Paschal sacrament abide in our minds” [4], and the preface which says that God is “perfecting the Paschal sacrament” [5], are both assigned to the vigil of Pentecost, not to the feast. And lastly, the Leonine collection contains a prayer on the vigil which states that God has “perfected (or ‘completed’) the mystery (arcanum) of the paschal solemnity in the fullness of (that day’s) mystery (mysteri).” [6]

In other words, to the very limited degree that prayers of the Roman Rite ever speak about Easter on Pentecost, they do so (or originally did so) not on the feast itself, but on the vigil. Likewise, the one Roman prayer that speaks of the fifty days of Easter did not originally belong to Pentecost, but to its vigil. It is the vigil, not the feast, on which God “wills that the Paschal sacrament be contained,” and on which He perfects and completes it. (“perfecisti”, “consummans”) [7]

Folio 81v of the Gellone Sacramentary, of the mixed Gelasian type, ca. 780 A.D. At the top is the proper Hanc igitur of Easter and Pentecost, as part of the first Mass for the vigil of the latter; in the middle begins the second Mass. The last feature on this page is the preface referenced above.

And this is exactly what we should expect, since the Roman Rite has always treated Easter and Pentecost on a par as the two great baptismal feasts, a tradition which is attested more than 150 years before the oldest of the liturgical books mentioned above.

All this leads me to believe that the Roman Rite did not original conceive of the all-important “fifty days” as all that important, and that it conceived of them as running not from Easter to Pentecost, but from the vigil of Easter to the vigil of Pentecost. And therefore, the addition of an octave to Pentecost did not in fact detract from the Church’s original tradition in any way, but rather built upon it and enriched it.

NOTES

[1] My thanks once again to my friend Gerhard Eger of Canticum Salomonis for helping me with this research, and checking to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

[2] The Old Gelasian Sacramentary has two different Masses for the vigil of Pentecost.

[3] In the critical edition of the so-called Leonine Sacramentary by Dom Leo Mohlberg OSB, this prayer is numbered 191; in his edition of the Old Gelasian, number 637; in Deshusses’ edition of the Gregorian Sacramentary, number 516. Many medieval uses of the Roman Rite have this prayer in the Divine Office, as does the Ambrosian Rite, which also uses it at the Mass of Pentecost. In the post-Conciliar Rite, it is assigned to First Vespers of the feast, and is one of two choices for the vigil Mass.

[4] “Concede (quaesumus), omnipotens Deus, ut paschalis perfeccio sacramenti mentibus nostris continua perseuerent. – Grant, we ask, almighty God, that the perfection of the Paschal sacrament may abide continually in our minds.” (Mohlberg, 630, with the spelling of the original.)

[5] Uere dignum: qui sacramentum paschale consummans, quibus per unigeniti tui consortium filius (-os) adopcionis esse tribuisti, per sanctum spiritum largiris dona graciarum, et sue coheredibus redemptoris iam nunc supernae pignos (-us) hereditatis inpendis, ut tanto se cretius (certius) ad eam confidant esse uenturos, quanto in eius participationem proficerint. Propterea. – Truly it is worthy: who, perfecting (or ‘completing’) the Paschal sacrament (or ‘mystery’), bestowest through the Holy Spirit the gifts of the graces on those whom Thou hast granted to be sons of adoption through the fellowship of Thy only-begotten Son; and to the fellow heirs of the Redeemer, dost already now give out the pledge of heavenly inheritance; that they may believe all the more certainly that they will come into it, as they advanced in the sharing thereof. Wherefore. (Mohlberg, 634, with the spelling of the original.)

[6] Omnipotens sempiterne deus, qui pascalis sollemnitatis arcanum hodierni mysteri plenitudine perfecisti: da, quaesumus, ut filii tuae adoptionis effecti, quam dominus noster Iesus Christus ad te ueniens dereliquid (-it), mereantur et pacem. per. – Almighty everlasting God, who in the fullness of today’s mystery has perfected the mystery of the Paschal solemnity; grant, we ask, that those who have been made sons of Thy adoption, may also merit that peace which our Lord Jesus Christ left (us) as He came to Thee. (Mohlberg, 210, with the spelling of the original.)

[7] There are several things we can add to this list of commonalities between the vigils of Easter and Pentecost. The repertoire of prophecies for the Pentecost vigil is not unique to that day, but borrowed from among those of Easter, although the collects which follow them are different. The blessing of the font, the litany of the Saints, and the chants between the epistle and gospel of the Mass are the same at both vigils. The variable Hanc igitur which is prayed for the newly baptized is used on both feasts, beginning on their vigils.

The Gospel during the vigil Mass of Pentecost at the FSSP’s church in Rome, Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, in 2018.

The ancient sacramentaries contain almost no ceremonial rubrics, and some other customs which reflect this commonality are first attested in sources later than the ones mentioned above. At both vigils, candles are not carried at the Gospel; at Easter, this represents the fact that the Risen Lord has not yet been seen, and at Pentecost, that the fire of the Holy Spirit has not yet descended. At both vigils, the Creed is not said, because the recitation of the more ancient Apostles’ Creed during the baptismal ceremony is considered sufficient for the day.

A Video from Dr Foley All About the Sign of Peace

Mass of the Ages has just released a very useful video in which our long-time contributor Dr Michael Foley gives the history of the Sign of Peace in the Roman Mass, from its origins to the present day. As must always be the case with such things, he also explains how the “restoration” of the Sign of Peace in the post-Conciliar Rite is anything but. The divorce between the Church’s historical tradition and the current practice has lead to the current “crisis of meaning” about it, as Dr Foley wisely terms it. This even lead Pope Benedict XVI to have the question examined of whether or not it should be moved to another part of the liturgy. Once again, we have a case where the traditional Roman Rite serves as a reference point for necessary future reforms. In the meantime, we certainly look forward to more of this kind of thing from MOTA - feliciter!

Liturgical Synaxes in the Byzantine Calendar

Once again, we are happy to share an article by our friend Fr Philip Gilbert, this time on the special commemorations called “synaxes” in the Byzantine tradition. Father Philip is a priest of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church; we have previously published his articles on the feasts of the Holy Cross, the week preceding Great Lent, Vespers of Forgiveness Sunday, etc. We also published photographs and a video of his priestly ordination in 2024.

In the liturgical calendar of the Byzantine Rite, there are several days designated as “Synaxes.” The word “synaxis” means a gathering together, and is also used as the name of the volumes containing a collection of the lives of the Saints (similar to the western Martyrology), i.e., The Synaxarion. But as a title for saints’ and feast days, one may encounter two uses of it.

The first use of “synaxis” is most often seen in iconography, meaning a common celebration or depiction of many or all the saints of a certain place or class. For example, one may see an icon of “The Synaxis of all the Holy Unmercenary Healers”, showing together in a group all the saints of various places and centuries who rendered aid and gave treatment without asking for payment. Or one may see depictions of all the saints who come from the same place, for example, “The Synaxis of all the Venerable Fathers of the Kyiv Caves Lavra who Repose in the Far Caves” (August 28th) or “All Saints of Mount Athos.” Local synods may add such feasts of saints from their region to their own liturgical calendars, and most would not be celebrated universally. One such synaxis that is celebrated universally is the feast of the holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the bodiless hosts of Heaven on November 8th.

A 17th-century icon of the Three Holy Herarchs. (image from wikipedia)

Another notable celebration, though not designated as a synaxis in the calendar, is the feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzen) and John Chrysostom on January 30th. This feast was instituted because each of these great fathers has his own feast in January, and disagreements and divisions arose over which of them was the greatest. Thus, a common feast of the three was instituted so that they would be celebrated together in harmony.

The second use of this term, and the sense that is the focus of this article, denotes a sort of minor feast as part of the celebrations of a preceding greater feast. The synaxis of a great feast highlights a figure or group who have a role in the event being celebrated, but are, so to speak, overshadowed by the main figure; its placement on the calendar is thus determined by the primary feast, rather than by chronology or historical considerations. This sort of synaxis is usually celebrated either on the second day of the greater feast or on the following Sunday.

The most notable examples of day-after synaxes are those of the Holy Spirit on the Monday after Pentecost Sunday; of the Theotokos on December 26th, following the Nativity of Christ, and of the Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist on January 7th, following the feast of the Lord’s Baptism on January 6th. Others of this category include: the Synaxis of the Holy and Righteous Ancestors of God Joachim and Anna on September 9th, after the Nativity of the Theotokos on the 8th; of the Holy and Righteous God-receiver Symeon and the Prophetess Anna on February 3rd, after the feast of the Meeting of the Lord (also known as the Encounter, or in the west, Candlemas) on February 2nd; of the Holy Glorious and All-Praiseworthy 12 Apostles on June 30th, after the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul on June 29th, which ranks among the highest of feasts; and of the Archangel Gabriel on March 26th, following the Annunciation. Interestingly, there is another feast called the “Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel” on July 13th; the reason for its institution is not clear, but perhaps due to the dedication of a church in his honor in Constantinople.

A Ukrainian icon of the Protection of the Mother of God, ca. 1740, artist unknown. 

On October 1st there falls the feast of the Holy Protection of the Theotokos, which is ironically neglected among the Greeks, but greatly beloved among Slavs, who celebrate it in a fashion similar to the twelve great feasts. October 1st is also the feast of St. Romanos the Melodist to whom is attributed some of the hymnography of the feast, such as the kontakion “Triumphant leader”. This is the day of his death, meaning that despite his connection with the feast of the Protection, his commemoration on that day, is a historical one, and not a synaxis. However, on October 2nd there is the feast of Andrew the Fool-for-Christ, to whom was given the vision of the Protection as the people of Constantinople gathered in the church at Blachernae pleading for deliverance from the enemy siege taking place outside the city walls. Due to his connection to the events of the Holy Protection, it would be reasonable to classify this feast of St. Andrew as a synactic commemoration.

A second type of synactic feast is celebrated on the Sunday after a great feast. There are three great feasts that have Sundays before and after celebrated as preparation for or in continuation of the greater feast. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the Theophany (Baptism) of our Lord have these designated Sundays; they are observed with special epistle and gospel readings at the Divine Liturgy, and other hymnography, but with no festal observation of saints. However, on the Sunday following the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, (which, as already mentioned, has a synaxis on the following day) there is a commemoration of some of the members of Jesus’ family: the holy prophet and psalmist King David, Christ’s ancestor in the flesh; Christ’s foster-father Joseph the Betrothed; and James the Brother of God, who according to the Eastern tradition was Joseph’s son from a previous marriage. Similarly, the two Sundays preceding the Nativity of our Lord commemorate the righteous prophets, ancestors and forefathers of Christ.

There are several commemorations in the movable period of the Lenten Triodion that function in the same way. On the Saturdays and Sundays of Lent there are a number of commemorations of figures important for monks; some of these are transferred to the weekend due to the somber nature of the penitential weekdays. Without taking these into account, there are several synactic feasts as well.

The first of these, on the last Saturday before the Great Fast (Lent), is the Synaxis of All Our Holy Ascetical Fathers and Mothers, given to us as an inspiration for the coming labors of the fast.

The first Sunday of the fast is a historical commemoration of the restoration of the icons to the churches after the iconoclast period, known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy. This commemoration became a celebration of the Church’s triumph over all heresies, not just iconoclasm. For this reason, in most churches that use the Byzantine Rite, the second Sunday of the fast is a synactic feast of the 14th century Athonite monk and bishop St. Gregory Palamas. This commemoration was instituted by the Greeks after the triumph of the hesychasts (of which St. Gregory was a leading defender) over their heretical opponents.

A Greek icon of the late 14th or early 15th century, representing the restoration of the icons, with the Empress St Theodora, her young son Michael III, and the Father of the Second Council of Nicea. From the icon collection of the British Museum.

The fourth and fifth Sundays of the fast are the feasts of Saints John Climacus (“of the Ladder”) and Mary of Egypt, both greatly beloved by monastics. In monasteries, St. John’s work The Ladder of Divine Ascent is read at 6th Hour throughout the entire fast, while the life of St. Mary is read at matins on Thursday of the 5th week, together with the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. These two saints are placed before us in these latter weeks of the Fast, when our energy and enthusiasm wane, as examples of great monastic asceticism and conversion.

In the Paschal season, the Sunday after Easter is commonly known as Thomas Sunday, since we read on this day the gospel account of St. Thomas’ encounter with the risen Christ in the upper room. This is certainly a continuation of the feast of Pascha, but not a synactic feast in the same sense, since it simply follows the order of events as recounted in the Gospel.

A fresco of the Myrrh-Bearing Women in the Dionysiou Monastery on Mt Athos.

However, the third Sunday of Pascha is a synactic commemoration of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, Salome, and the others, as well as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, those who attended to Christ’s burial by asking Pilate for His body, bringing costly myrrh and spices, and placing Him in the tomb. The noble actions of Joseph and Nicodemus for which they are commemorated took place before the resurrection, meaning that their feast is placed on this third Sunday out of chronological order. As for the myrrh-bearing women, they do of course have a connection to the feast of Pascha itself, since they came to the Lord’s tomb on the third day and found it empty, thus being the first to witness and proclaim the Resurrection. The icon of the myrrh-bearers usually depicts them conversing with the angel in front of the empty tomb. Here it is worth noting that their coming to the empty tomb is not a new act, but a continuation of their faithfully attending to and following Christ through His ministry, passion, and death, and so not exclusively related to the Resurrection. They were, after all, coming to His tomb to finish the appropriate burial rites. A second point to note here is that were this a historical and not synactic commemoration, the myrrh-bearers would be commemorated on the day of Pascha itself, or if transferred for the sake of Bright Week (the octave of Pascha), on the following Sunday.

A modern icon of All Saints of Ukraine

The Sunday after Pentecost is the feast of All Saints, a placement which makes the most sense when seen in the framework of these great feasts and their synaxes. It is through the preaching of the apostles, sent forth with the gifts and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we, the Gentiles, come to share in the life of God and achieve sanctity. Thus, All Saints is a feast of those who have also received the grace of the Spirit through the Church from the original descent of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem all those many years ago. This point is further driven home by the second Sunday after Pentecost, which is a commonly kept as a feast of all saints of a particular place, i.e., the feast of All Saints of Greece, of Ukraine, of Mount Athos, of North America, etc., those who have walked the same ground that you walk. The gifts of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Apostles have been received even here, so we have no excuse for not becoming saints ourselves. After Pentecost we begin the “regular” (I hesitate to say “ordinary”) time of the year, counting the “Sundays after Pentecost” until we come again to the beginning of the Lenten cycle. The significance of this is that we are living in the age of Pentecost, of the working of the Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel to all the nations.

The Offertory: Preparation of the Gifts or a Sacrifice to God? (Part 1)

The nature of the Offertory Rite is a recurring topic on this website. What follows is a summary of sorts in two parts. In part one, we survey the Offertory in the pre-conciliar Roman Missal and ascertain whether or not it constitutes a sacrifice. In part two, we examine the new Offertory Rite in the 1970 Roman Missal and ascertain whether or not it constitutes a sacrifice.

One of the more contentious areas of the liturgical reform was over the function and nature of the Offertory. An earlier generation of liturgists had hailed the Roman Offertory Rite as “a most appropriate… preparation for the sacrificial action accomplished at the moment of Consecration.” [1] In the days of St. Justin Martyr (100-165), bread and a cup of water and wine were simply “brought to the president of the brethren.” [2] But as Adrian Fortescue notes,

Very soon the idea developed that as [these elements] are brought they should be offered to God at once, before they are consecrated. This is only one case of the universal practice of blessing, dedicating to God anything that is to be used for his service. We dedicate churches, altars, chalices, so in the same way we bless the water to be used for baptism and offer to God the bread and wine to be consecrated. [3]

The Traditional Offertory

The fruit of this idea in the 1570 Roman Missal is the following.

The Offertory begins with the priest removing the chalice veil. This small act is of great significance, for it begins the Mass of the Faithful. Anyone who is not present for this unveiling does not fulfill his obligation to assist at Mass (if he has one), the implication being that if a lay believer is to assist, his presence at and participation in the Offertory are crucial for him.

The priest takes the unconsecrated host and prays the Suscipe, Sancte Pater in which he calls the host “this unspotted victim (hostia).” The language is arresting. Only the object of a bloody immolation was called a victim in the Old Testament; grain offerings were not. We do see in this prayer shades of the Grain Offering (Minchah) since bread is being offered, but with the reference to an unspotted victim we also see an allusion to the Peace Offering (Shelem), which required an animal without defect, an “unspotted” animal, for the sacrifice. The Peace Offering, in turn, could be used as a Purification Offering (Chattah), which purported to purge the offerer of sin, and which, according to this prayer, is the purpose of the priest’s offering of bread. The priest concludes the prayer by making the sign of the cross with it as he lays it on the corporal—a blessing.

The priest then prepares the chalice by mixing water and wine while reciting the Deus qui humanae, a beautiful prayer that links the dignity of human nature to its creation and the Incarnation and then to the Sacrifice of the Mass. Fr. James McEvoy and Dr. Mette Lebech argue that the Deus qui humanae substantiae made a significant contribution to the Western conceptualization of human dignity even before its use at the Offertory, and that after it was included in the Rite during the Middle Ages, it created an association between human dignity and the holy exchange of gifts. “In this way,” McEvoy and Lebech conclude, “the prayer significantly shaped the Christian concept of human dignity as the holy ‘place’ of commerce with God.” [4] All human dignity, in other words, is forever linked not just to our creation in His image and likeness and not just to God’s assumption of our humanity in the person of Jesus Christ but to Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Human dignity is Eucharistic.

The Deus qui humanae substantiae also has distinctive language. The combination of water and wine is not called a mixing but a mystery, the traditional explanation (which goes back to Cyprian of Carthage (210-85)) [5] being that it is a symbol of the Incarnation: wine represents Christ’s divinity and water His humanity. The rest of the prayer confirms this incarnational interpretation.

Finally, before the priest adds water to the wine, he blesses it—another blessing.

The priest then offers the mixture to God, saying the prayer Offerimus tibi. But instead of calling this offering “wine and water” (which it is), he refers to it as “the chalice of salvation,” which it is not yet. The priest makes the sign of the cross with the chalice before he places it on the corporal, again another blessing.

After the priest offers up the bread and wine together, he offers up himself and others with the prayer In spiritu humilitatis, asking we may be made acceptable to God and that “our sacrifice” be pleasing to Him. But how is this offering a sacrifice?

The same question about sacrifice is posed with the Veni Sanctificator. The priest makes the sign of the cross over the bread and wine (in other words, blessing it) while he invokes the Holy Spirit:

Come, O Sanctifier, almighty, eternal God, and bless this sacrifice prepared for Thy holy name.

At a High Mass, the priest now blesses incense and likewise offers it to God before blessing the crucifix, the gifts, and the altar with it. When addressing God about the incense, the priest uses the Latin pronoun iste, meaning “this thing of yours.” Ascribing incense to God (even though it is a human, manufactured good) ties into the central paradox of the entire Offertory, namely, that we are offering to God what already belongs to Him, or as the Byzantine Divine Liturgy puts it, “We offer to Thee Thine own of Thine own, in all and for all.” The priest first asks God to bless this incense of His and then asks God to make this blessed incense of His ascend to Heaven in order for mercy to descend to earth. Instead of construing incense as the “work of human hands,” the priest omits the secondary causes of human agency and focuses on the Primary Cause in an act of gratitude.

What and who are incensed is also noteworthy: the bread and wine; the cross, relics, and altar; and the priest and everyone else, including the congregation. The laity should be especially grateful for being included in this rite: besides being a sign that they are one of the oblations being offered, it is also a sign that they are one of the offerers. For in their own way and by virtue of their royal priesthood in baptism, the lay faithful are agents in the offertory: expendable agents to be sure (Mass can be celebrated without them), but agents nonetheless.

The priest then washes his fingers while praying the Lavabo, a psalm with the theme of innocence. The action and the words together call to mind Pilate’s washing his hands and declaring his innocence before “sacrificing” Christ to an angry mob. Here, the priest washes his hands praying for innocence before he enters into the Canon, when the sacrifice of the altar will occur.

The priest addressed the Father in the Suscipe Sancte Pater, alluded to the son in the Deus qui humanae substantiae, and invoked the Holy Spirit in the Veni Sanctificator. Now, he concludes by addressing the Holy Trinity with the Suscipe Sancte Trinitas, a prayer that marvelously and concisely summarizes the orthodox theology of offertory:

Receive, O holy Trinity, this oblation which we offer to Thee in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, these Saints of yours here, and all the Saints, that there may be an increase of honor for them and of salvation for us, and may they deign to intercede for us in Heaven, whose memory we celebrate on earth. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Finally, the priest addresses the congregation with the Orate fratres:

Brethren, pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father almighty.

To which the servers or congregation respond:

May the Lord receive the sacrifice from thy hands, for the praise and glory of His name, for our benefit and that of all His holy Church.

The priest makes an important distinction: instead of saying “our sacrifice,” he says “my sacrifice and yours.” The sacrifice of priest and congregation are different insofar as one is sacrificing according to his holy orders (confecting the Eucharist) and the other is sacrificing by virtue of their baptism into the common priesthood. But the latter, this prayer affirms, are sacrificing nonetheless.

And yet, how can this offering (in the case of the laity, saying a few prayers and throwing a couple of bucks into the usher’s basket) be considered a sacrifice?

Solution

There are two classical—and complementary—answers to this nagging question. The first is that the oblational and sacrificial language in the Rite is “proleptic”: [6] it anticipates a thing as existing before it actually comes into being. An unconsecrated host is just a piece of unleavened bread, but once I know that it has been chosen to become the Body of Our Lord, I think of it differently and view it with increased reverence. In support of the “proleptic” explanation is its strong presence in both Eastern and Western Christendom. In the Byzantine Rite, for example, all bow before the unconsecrated gifts of bread and wine when they are processed to the altar during the Great Entrance.

Further supporting this explanation is biblical usage. During their journey to Mount Moriah for what is supposed to Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, an ignorant Isaac asks his father: “Behold… fire and wood: where is the victim for the holocaust?” (Gen. 22, 7) The central sacrificial act of shedding blood and throwing the slain creature onto a fire is days away from happening, but Isaac is already referring to the designated creature as the “victim,” which until the seventeenth century only referred to something immolated and offered to God in a religious sacrifice.

Second, the Offertory is not just the anticipation of the sacrifice but its commencement. Summing up centuries of theological reflection on the subject, Manfred Hauke writes, “The offertory is only the beginning of the sacrifice, which is completed in the consecration.” [7] One may think of the bread and wine as having three possible modes of existence. First, it is simply bread and wine: even bread that has been shaped into eucharistic wafers and made specifically for the celebration of Mass can be eaten as a snack, as we see in the case of the German cookie lebkuchen. But the moment the priest says the Suscipe Sancte Pater over the bread and the Offerimus tibi over the wine, these elements are now sacred—set aside for divine use. In this second stage, they may not have the Real Presence yet, but neither should they be used in making cookies: they now belong to God. And third, the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine when the Words of Institution are said over them during the Canon. In the Offertory, the gifts are sacralized; in the Canon, they are transubstantiated into Christ’s Body and Blood.

Further supporting this thesis is the witness of Old Testament sacrifices, several of which involved three stages: 1) lay persons bring to the priest a sacrificial victim and in some cases slay it themselves; 2) the priest places some or all of the victim on a fire to be destroyed; and 3) if some is left over, it is consumed by priest and people. In this threefold act we see a foreshadowing of our Offertory, Canon, and Holy Communion.

Notes

[1] Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 5th ed. (Herder, 1918), 494.

[2] I Apol. 65.3; see also 67.5.

[3] Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (Longmans, Green, and Co, 1912), 296.

[4] James McEvoy and Mette Lebech, “Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem: A Latin Liturgical Source Contributing to the Conceptualization History of Human Dignity,” Maynooth Philosophical Papers 10 (2020), 117-33, 117.

[5] See Epistle 62.13.

[6] See Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2 (Benziger Brothers, 1951), 37. Fortescue uses the term “dramatic misplacement” (Ibid., 305).

[7] Manfred Hauke, “The Offertory as a Challenge to Liturgical Reforms in History,” in The Sacrifice of the Mass, ed. Matthew Hazell (Smenos, 2023), 153.

An earlier version of this article appeared as “The Offertory: Preparation of the Gifts or a Sacrifice to God?” in The Latin Mass magazine 34:3 (Fall 2025), pp. 42-46. Many thanks to the editors of TLM for allowing its publication here.

The Octave of Pentecost and the Sacraments

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.)

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.

The octave of Pentecost is attested in every single pertinent liturgical book of the Roman Rite that we have, going back to the Wurzburg lectionary in the middle of the 7th century. [1] It is part of the liturgical patrimony which the rite shares with the rest of Christendom, as e.g., the Byzantine Rite, which still keeps Pentecost with an afterfeast that lasts until the following Saturday.

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.

The next page of the Gellone Sacramentary (82v) 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Durandus on the Liturgy of Pentecost Thursday

The Mass of Thursday in some churches does not have its own Introit, but because the Lord came down on Sunday through the sending of the Holy Spirit, and on Thursday ascended into heaven, therefore the Introit is common to Sunday and Thursday. … and thus, from Saturday to Saturday there are seven Masses, which correspond to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. …

Introitus Sap 1, 7 Spíritus Dómini replévit orbem terrárum, allelúja: et hoc quod cóntinet omnia, scientiam habet vocis, allelúja, allelúja, allelúja. Ps 67 Exsurgat Deus, et dissipentur inimíci ejus: et fugiant qui odérunt eum a facie ejus. Gloria Patri ... Spíritus Dómini...

Introit Wis. 1, 7 The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the world, alleluia, and that, which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Ps 67 Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let those who hate Him flee from before His face. Glory be... The Spirit of the Lord...

But some churches sing the introit which is said on the following day, namely, “Let my mouth be filled with your praise.” Others have a proper Mass, namely, “God of our fathers, grant us the spirit of grace,” in which the church prays that the Holy Spirit be given to her sons for the forgiveness of sins and perform miracles. (This is actually part of the text of a troped Gloria, not an introit.) And because miracles happen through the Holy Spirit, therefore the Epistle (Acts 8, 5-8) is read in which Phillip healed many of the lame, and cast out unclean spirits, and there was great rejoicing in that city, namely, Samaria. And because all these things happen through the Holy Spirit, there follows the Gospel (Luke 9, 1-6) “Jesus called together the twelve Apostles, then gave them strength and power over all demons”, and afterwards, “take nothing on the way, neither staff nor bullet wallet”; these things can only be done by those who an abundance of the Holy Spirit.

– This Epistle also parallels that of Easter Thursday, Acts 8, 26-40, in which the same Philip (one of the seven first deacons, sometime called Philip the Evangelist to distinguish him from the Apostle) converts and baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch.

The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch, ca. 1625-30, Attributed to the Flemish painters Hendrik van Balen the Elder (1575 ca. - 1632) and Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601-78). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

– As an interesting aside, Durandus knew (6, 43) that the Thursdays of Lent were originally “aliturgical” days, on which Mass was not said, and that this custom was changed by Pope St Gregory II; he also understood that this history explained some of the particularities in the arrangement of the liturgical texts of those Thursdays. However, he evidently did not realize that Pentecost Thursday has no Mass of its own for the same reason, namely, that it was originally also an aliturgical day, and also changed by St Gregory II.

The Feast and Fast of Pentecost

On the vigil of Pentecost, as on that of Easter, the Roman station church is the cathedral of the Most Holy Savior, popularly known as St John in the Lateran. This is, of course, because of the day’s very ancient character as one of the two occasions for the celebration of baptism, following what the Acts of the Apostles say about the very first Pentecost (2, 41), when St Peter baptized about 3,000 people. In ancient times, it was an almost universal custom that a cathedral should have a baptistery right next to it, and Rome was no exception; furthermore, the administration of baptism was principally a duty of the bishop. This is also why the traditional Roman vigil of Pentecost repeats several elements from the vigil of Easter, most significantly, a series of catechetical prophecies, and the blessing of the baptismal font, a custom attested in all of the ancient liturgical books of the Roman Rite. [1] The collect of the Mass refers to the baptismal character of the rite even more explicitly than that of the Easter vigil, and the Hanc igitur of Easter is said, which speaks of those “whom (God has) deigned to regenerate of water and the Holy Spirit”, as also throughout the octave. [2]

The interior of the Lateran Baptistery

After the celebration of the Easter vigil at a church dedicated to the Savior, the stations of Easter week bring the newly baptized to the churches of the most important Saints, arranged in hierarchical order. Easter Sunday is celebrated at St Mary Major, the Virgin’s most ancient Roman church; the Masses of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are held at the tombs of Ss Peter, Paul and Lawrence respectively, the city’s three principal patrons. On Thursday the station is at the church of the Twelve Apostles, and on Friday at the Pantheon, dedicated to all the martyrs; Saturday returns to the Lateran, where St John represents the confessors. As detailed in the first article linked above, each one of these Masses contains clear references to the Saint or group of Saints to whom the station church is dedicated.

Of the seven station churches of the vigil, feast and octave of Easter, five are also kept at Pentecost, albeit in a different order. Starting from this fact, and from the common station for the vigil, the Bl. Ildephonse Schuster attempts in his book The Sacramentary (vol. 2, p. 397) to explain the stations of Pentecost and its octave in reference to those of Easter, according to a “deliberate design of making the two feasts equal”, and posits various reasons for the change in order. His explanation seems to me, however, to run aground by starting from an a priori assumption that since Pentecost imitates Easter in some ways, we should expect it to imitate Easter in all or most ways, which it clearly does not. For example, at the beginning of the Pentecost vigil, there is no blessing of a fire, even though this would arguably be an especially appropriate rite to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire. [3] But much more significantly in regard to the stations, the texts of the Pentecost Masses, unlike those of Easter, have almost no relationship to the churches where they are celebrated. [4]

The organizing principle of the stations of Pentecost is rather that they are arranged in deliberate imitation of those of the first week of Lent, as shown in the following chart.

	First Week of Lent	Pentecost
vigil		Lateran
Sunday	Lateran	St Peter’s
Monday	St Peter in Chains	St Peter in Chains
Tuesday	St Anastasia	St Anastasia
Wednes.	St Mary Major	St Mary Major
Thurs.	St Lawrence in Panispera	St Lawrence Outside-the-Walls
Friday	Twelve Apostles	Twelve Apostles
Saturday	St Peter’s	St Peter’s

There are two places where the lists differ, Sunday and Thursday, both of which are easily explained. Before the creation of Ash Wednesday as a part of the liturgical year, Lent began on the First Sunday; the station is held at the cathedral as the most appropriate place for the Pope to begin the catechumenal rites which were such a prominent feature of the season. In the case of Pentecost, the station is at the Lateran on the vigil, and so on the feast, it is kept at St Peter’s instead. As the largest church in Rome, this is the logical choice for a solemnity of such importance, which would presumably draw a very big congregation; and indeed, the station is also held there on Epiphany, on the Ascension, originally on Christmas day, and on the city’s patronal feast.

In the case of Thursday, in Lent, it was originally an “aliturgical” day on which no Mass was celebrated, and this was also true of the Thursday after Pentecost. The custom of having aliturgical days was abolished in the early 8th century, for reasons which I have explained elsewhere, and stations appointed for those days; the Thursdays of the First Week of Lent and of Pentecost were then both assigned to churches dedicated to St Lawrence.

The Martyrdom of St Lawrence, by Titian, from the Spanish Royal Monastery of the Escorial. This is traditionally said to have taken place on the site where the church of St Lawrence in Panisperna now stands.

The question naturally arises as to why the stations of one of the greatest and most solemn feasts copy those of the beginning of the great fast. The answer lies, of course, in the Ember days. We have a total of 22 sermons by Pope St Leo I (444-61) preached on these fast days, four on those of Pentecost, and nine each on those of September and December. In them, he states several times that they were of apostolic institution; we cannot prove that this is in fact the case, but they are unquestionably very ancient. The stations for the Ember Days are always held at Mary Major on Wednesday, at the Twelve Apostles on Friday, and at St Peter’s on Saturday; this being the case, and the necessary exception having been made for Sunday, those of Monday and Tuesday simply reproduce those of the Monday and Tuesday of the First Week of Lent.

The liturgical texts for Pentecost and its octave, including the Ember days, and the stations of the vigil and the first four days of the feast, are attested with a very notable degree of consistency in the oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite. However, it is also the case that in many early books, the Ember days appear as a feature of the liturgical year separate from the Pentecost octave. In the older version of the Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Lat. Reg. 316), they are placed between Pentecost and its octave day, but in the modified form attested in the Gellone Sacramentary, and in the earliest lectionaries, they are not just after the octave, but further separated from it by four feasts and two Sundays. The Mass of Ember Wednesday originally had the following preface, which is modeled fairly closely on a part of Pope Leo’s first sermon on the fast of Pentecost. [5]

“Truly it is worthy… For after those days of rejoicing, which we have kept in honor of the Lord who rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, then indeed have holy fasts been foreseen as necessary to us, so that those thing which have been divinely bestowed upon the Church may abide (i.e. continue to be present) in those who keep a pure manner of living. Through Christ our Lord.”

Folio 83v of the Gellone Sacramentary, ca 780AD, with the preface cited above incorporated into the Mass of Ember Wednesday within the Octave of Pentecost in the middle of the page. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 12048)

Therefore, just as the Ember days of Lent mark the beginning of the Church’s fast in preparation for the baptismal rites of Easter, this text presents the fast after Pentecost as a preparation for the rest of the liturgical year, the longest part of it, once all of the catechumens have joined the company of the faithful. “Therefore did these teachers (i.e. the Apostles), who imbued all the sons of the Church with their examples and traditions, begin the first service of Christian warfare with holy fasts, so that those who are about to fight against spiritual wickedness might take up the arms of abstinence, by which to cut off all incentives to vice.” (St Leo, ibid. cap. 2)

As in interesting aside, the title of the Ember days in the ancient Roman liturgical books is not “Quatuor Temporum”, as it is in the Tridentine books. Those of Pentecost are called “the fast of the fourth month”, those of September and December, “of the seventh” and “of the tenth month” respectively. [6] These titles come from a verse of the prophet Zachariah, 8, 19, which is included in the fourth prophecy of the Mass of Ember Saturday in September, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: * The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda joy and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace.” That this is not mere coincidence is demonstrated by several early epistle lectionaries, in which the words “jejunium primi – the fast of the first (month)” are added to the Biblical text at the place marked with a star above, in order to include the Ember days of Lent.

The fourth prophecy of Ember Saturday of September, Zachariah 8, 14-19, in the so-called Lectionary of Alcuin, an epistolary of the 9th century whose contents represent the state of the Roman lectionary in the early 7th century. The words “jejunium primi” are in the 5th and 4th line from the bottom. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9452; folio 99r, image cropped.)

It is tempting to speculate that the “fast of the fifth month” may have been fulfilled with the four vigils kept at the end of June, those of Ss Protasius and Gervasius, St John the Baptist, Ss John and Paul, and Ss Peter and Paul, the second and fourth of which are still kept in the Extraordinary Form to this day. The very end of the reading serves as the ferial chapter of Prime in the Roman Breviary, a reminder to continually cultivate the virtues which the Church seeks to instill in us by periods of fasting throughout the year.

✥

NOTES: [1] This is also attested well before any surviving liturgical book, already at the end of the fourth century, in a letter of Pope St Siricius (384-399) to Himerius, bishop of Tarragon in Spain. (Epist. ad Himerium cap. 2: PL XIII, 1131B-1148A) Pope St Leo I (440-461) also asserts that this was the practice of the Church in a letter to the bishops of Sicily, exhorting them to follow the example of the Apostle Peter noted above. (Epist. XVI ad universos episcopos per Siciliam constitutos, PL LIV, 695B-704A).

[2] Further similarities between the vigils of Easter and Pentecost: the rite begins in the penitential color, violet. Six prophecies are repeated from the vigil of Easter, and the three tracts from Easter night are also repeated in their respective places. Each prophecy is followed by a prayer; the six prayers are different from those of the Easter vigil, but express many of the same ideas. At the Mass, the ministers change vestments and color; there is no Introit, and the bells are rung at the Gloria in excelsis. After the Alleluja of the Mass, the same Tract is sung as on Easter night. At the Gospel, the acolytes do not carry candles. Just as on Easter night the Resurrection is watched for, but not anticipated, so also with this same gesture, the Church watches for the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire, as Christ told His disciples to do, but does not anticipate it.

[3] Note further that the Divine Office of Pentecost has only one nocturn at Matins, like that of Easter, but otherwise shares none of the Paschal Office’s unique characteristics.

[4] The Mass of Pentecost Monday, with its station at St Peter in Chains, is a partial exception. The basilica was originally dedicated to both Ss Peter and Paul; the Collect refers to God giving “the Holy Spirit to (His) Apostles”, and the Epistle, Acts 10, 34 & 42-48, to the baptism of the gentiles, a mission fulfilled by both Peter and Paul in Rome.

[5] The Preface: VD: Post illos enim laetitiae dies, quos in honore Domini a mortuis resurgentis et in caelos ascendentis exigimus, postque perceptum sancti Spiritus donum, necessaria etenim nobis ieiunia sancta prouisa sunt, ut pura conversacione uiuentibus que diuinitus sunt aecclesiae conlata permaneant: per Christum dominum nostrum.
St Leo: Igitur post sanctae laetitiae dies, quos in honorem Domini a mortuis resurgentis, ac deinde in caelos ascendentis, exegimus, postque perceptum sancti Spiritus donum, salubriter et necessarie consuetudo est ordinata jejunii: ut si quid forte inter ipsa festivitatum gaudia negligens libertas et licentia inordinata praesumpsit, hoc religiosae abstinentiae censura castiget: quae ob hoc quoque studiosius exsequenda est, ut illa in nobis quae hac die Ecclesiae divinitus sunt collata permaneant. (De jejunio Pentecostes I, 3)

[6] The Roman calendar originally counted only ten months, starting with March, with the days between December and March as a month-less period. Although this impractical system was traditionally said to have been changed less than 50 years after the founding of the city, the Romans were a people who knew how to honor tradition; this is why the names of the last four months, which derive from “septem – seven”, “octo – eight” etc., were never changed. By this reckoning, March is the first month, and June the fourth.