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.

Francis X. Weiser, SJ, the Domestic Heortologist, Part One: Biography

Francis X. Weiser, S.J. (1901-86) is better known today among homeschooling Catholic families than liturgical scholars, but his works on the Church calendar were once held in high regard for their erudition and clarity. Weiser’s popular books on Christian festivities and customs played a role in the American Liturgical Movement of the 1950s, and they still serve as a model for balancing scholarly rigor and pastoral sensitivity. In this article, we examine Father Weiser’s life and writings: in the next, his liturgiology.

Early Life

Franz Xavier Weiser was born in Vienna, Austria on March 21, 1901 to Franz S. Weiser and Maria (née Schipp) Weiser. At the time, Vienna was still, as Weiser would later describe it, “the gay capital of a famous empire” and “the great metropolis of music and song.” The pre-war culture of the Imperial City would have a significant impact on Weiser and his authorial ambitions:

You might say that we grew up to the tunes of Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss. I have a vague feeling that this atmosphere of culture, music, and art, had much to do with my desire to write. At the age of eight or nine, while still a little boy in grammar school, I used to ask God daily in my evening prayer to “let me write books.”

Another formative influence on Weiser was domestic devotional practices. Joseph Ratzinger, who lived only a few miles from the Austrian border in a similar Catholic milieu, writes in his autobiography: “The Church year gave the time its rhythm, and I experienced that with great gratitude and joy already as a child, indeed, above all as a child.” As a boy Ratzinger was particularly fond of the liturgies and Bavarian customs of the Christmas and Easter seasons. “Every new step into the liturgy was a great event for me,” he recalls. “It was a riveting adventure.”

Weiser’s earliest recollections were of a similar kind. One of his first memories was that of his mother Maria making the sign of the cross on his forehead and wishing him good night. “This simple action,” he writes, “taught me more than any words the great truth that parents are God’s representatives.” He learned the same lesson from “an old and very wholesome practice [that] demanded that children, before going to Confession, should ask forgiveness from their parents for offenses and faults committed in the home.” Weiser’s mother was also adept at explaining the meaning of Christian practices to her son. He recalls:

It was the general custom among Catholics to greet priests on the street and in public in order to profess the Faith and show reverence for the holy priesthood. When I was a little boy, my mother told me, “You must always joyfully greet a priest, whether you know him or not. Your Guardian Angel, too, greets the priests with great love and reverence.” These simple words of my mother made a deep impression on me; I never forgot them.

Other memories of Weiser were tied to the liturgical year, such as his family’s observance of name days, the feast day of the saint after whom one is named. Weiser writes:

I remember how from early childhood I went to church with my father every year on the feast of St. Francis Xavier, attending the Holy Sacrifice and later receiving Communion, too. Returning home, I found the table cheerfully decorated with flowers and little presents. Mother, Father, brothers and sisters offered their congratulations. Then we sat down to a joyful breakfast, my proud little self sitting in the place of honor. And all this because centuries ago a wonderful young man in Spain loved God so much that he became a Saint. I cannot express the powerful conviction that filled me every year on this occasion, how great and important it is to become holy. This was one of the eloquent lessons which our religious customs taught me without words, but with an effect greater than many words could achieve. Judging from this aspect, we may truly say that such Catholic customs in the home educate the children more efficiently than the best Catholic teachers could ever do in school.

But perhaps his most important devotional memory is that of the annual visit of St. Nicholas:

I still vividly remember the annual visit of this friendly and saintly figure on the evening of December 5. With joy and happy excitement we awaited his coming. We were convinced, as little children easily are, that he really was our great Patron Saint who came from Heaven on his feast day to visit us children whom he loved so much. With utter sincerity we promised him to overcome our faults, to obey our parents and to prepare our hearts for Christmas. Gratefully we accepted his gifts and kissed the ring on his holy hand. Never again in all my life have I experienced the unspeakable thrill of a physical nearness to Heaven as I did on those evenings of my childhood when “St. Nicholas” came to us. When I later found out that it was not really the Saint but a man representing him, this caused me no shock or harm. The thrill I had felt remained in my memory and has remained to this day with all its beauty.

Both Ratzinger and Weiser’s childhood memories would presage their later interest in liturgical studies.

Early Writings

Weiser received the standard gymnasium education of his day: Latin at the age of eleven, Greek at fourteen, three years of Italian, and instruction in religion, literature, history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, drawing, music, art appreciation, and singing, all “topped by a two-year course in fundamental philosophy.” But instead of going on to university, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at the age of nineteen. In 1924, he began a seven-year period of matriculation at the University of Innsbruck, ending with doctorates in philosophy, theology, and education/psychology. Among his teachers at Innsbruck was a fellow Austrian Jesuit, the liturgical scholar Josef A. Jungmann. In a brief autobiographical essay Weiser calls these degrees the recorded “fruits” of his studies but adds: “The unrecorded fruit (which is more important), is supposed to have become a part of my personality, and is known only to God.”

Weiser was ordained a priest on July 26, 1930 at Holy Trinity Church in Innsbruck. The next year he began his tertianship, the third stage of probation and a special year of spiritual training for Jesuits before they take their final vows, at the novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Hyde Park, New York. During his time in the United States, he took courses at nearby Marist College in Poughkeepsie and visited St. Louis University and the Missouri countryside.

Weiser’s superiors encouraged him to pursue his childhood interest in writing, and soon he was an accomplished author. He published eight books between 1927 and 1931: three biographies (of Jesuit missionaries Johann Grueber and Blessed Charles Spinola and the Jesuit martyr Miguel Pro), four novels, and a history of a German Catholic student association in Prague called Nordgau. His novels from this period include Der Sohn des weißen Häuptlings (The Son of the White Chief), Alfreds Geheimnis (Alfred’s Secret), Walter Klingers Weltfahrt (Walter Klinger’s World Tour), and Das Licht der Berge: Aus dem Leben eines jungen Menschen (The Light on the Mountains: From the Life of a Young Person). Das Licht remains Weiser’s most popular book: it went through thirty-eight editions in German between 1931 and 1998, sold over one million copies, and has been translated into thirty languages. The International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (2004) designates the book as a Bildungsroman in which

Hein Moll, a boy from Tirol, is confronted in the capital Vienna with a number of fundamental issues. By trial and error he finds the strength to remain faithful to his Christian ideals. In this type of traditional novel a priest often acts as an adviser. In more recent juvenile fiction religion no longer forms the familiar setting in which the young characters grow up.

Vienna, 1932-38

In 1932 Weiser returned to Vienna, where he served as the national moderator of Austria’s Marian Congregations (a student sodality run by the Society of Jesus) and the editor of their monthly magazine Unsere Fahne (Our Flag). The two positions dovetailed nicely with his already-apparent interest in youth formation through juvenile fiction and inspirational biography. By the time he left Vienna in 1938, he had written another sixteen books: biographies, novels, plays, travelogues, and a scholarly monograph on a German dialect that is still being cited in linguistic studies.

Several of Weiser’s works during this time owe their inspiration to his stay in America. His 1933 Im Lande des Sternenbanners (In the Land of the Star-Spangled Banner) is a travelogue while his 1936 Amerikanisches Tagebuch (American Diary) draws from his trip to Missouri in order to reminisce “on the exploits of pioneer Jesuit missionaries such as Father De Smet and Father Franz Xaver Weninger.” Weiser also published separate biographies on DeSmet and Weninger along with a biography of Jesuit Father James Bouchard (a Delaware Indian originally named Watomika) and the Jesuit martyr Jean de Brebeuf.

The Anschluss, the War, and Its Aftermath

Most likely it was Weiser’s prior experience with and fondness of America that influenced his decision of where to go when Nazi Germany annexed his homeland on March 12, 1938. Although some members of the Austrian episcopate welcomed the “union of Greater Germany,” it was clear to Weiser that “Catholic youth work” would be “made well-nigh impossible” by Nazi occupation. By year’s end he moved to America. Drawing from an uncited source, the German-language edition of Wikipedia states that “Francis Weiser was sent by his order to the United States in 1938 to study the history of the Jesuit mission in North America” while the Jesuit Archives asserts that he “fled to the United States.” Weiser himself simply writes: “I ‘returned’ to the United States that same year and have remained here ever since.”

In 1938, Weiser was appointed associate pastor of St. Ann Church in Buffalo, New York. The following year, he was transferred to Boston to become the associate pastor of Holy Trinity Church, a parish of 490 families and two schools with 400 students that primarily served German Americans. When the pastor’s health began to decline in 1943, Weiser was made his successor and remained pastor of Holy Trinity until 1950.

Weiser thus had the unenviable position of shepherding a German parish in the United States during World War II, a time when anti-German sentiment ran high. But he made the best of these “bittersweet years.” A history of Holy Trinity published in 1994 describes him as “an intellectual of the first rank” who “was an extremely active pastor.” In 1944, the parish’s week-long celebration of their centennial included several Missae cantatae and a Solemn High Mass, visits from local dignitaries such as the mayor of Boston and archdiocesan administrator Richard J. Cushing (later cardinal), and a special concert featuring some personal friends of Weiser who had likewise fled the Anschluss and emigrated to New England: the Von Trapp Family Singers. (I have also heard from former Holy Trinity parishioners that the Trapps, who lived in Stowe, Vermont, would serve in the choir for a High Mass anytime Fr. Weiser needed them for a special occasion).

The centennial would prompt Weiser to write his only book during the war, a history of Holy Trinity. In the preface he evinces, as he did in his autobiography, an appreciation of external accomplishments coupled with an awareness of the primacy of “unrecorded fruits” in the interior life:

The history of the parish possesses an (sic) unique interest. Naturally, its first and foremost achievement as a Catholic parish will always remain hidden within the sphere of personal religious life, but its external activities exhibit features which will engage the attention not only of its own parishioners but of all Catholics.

The Von Trapps

In this brief monograph Weiser also took advantage of his friendship with the von Trapps; the illustrations were drawn by their daughter Agathe. And after Captain Georg von Trapp passed away in 1947, Weiser dedicated his Christmas Book to him. In addition to his regular pastoral duties, Weiser helped found the Massachusetts branch of the National Catholic Women’s Union and soon became their National Spiritual Director (a position he would hold for twenty years) and the National Youth Director of both the National Catholic Women’s Union and the National Catholic Central Union of America. he also served as auxiliary chaplain to German POWs at Fort Devens from 1943 until 1945.

But it was after the war that his activities reached a new level. Stories began to reach the U.S. of nuns starving to death and of Soviet troops raping and plundering in Austria and Germany; Weiser’s beloved Vienna was designated by a United Press International report as the hungriest capital in Europe. Under Weiser’s leadership, Holy Trinity became the premier parish in the United States for European war relief. In May 1946, the archbishop of Boston, recognizing his efforts, named him the official representative of the archdiocese for relief work for the national Catholic Welfare Conference in Germany and Austria. Between 1946 and 1949, the Holy Trinity rectory was stacked high with packages of food and clothing to be shipped to Europe as Weiser answered 25,200 letters from Europe begging for assistance. During this period, Holy Trinity raised $85,000 ($1,126,075 in today’s money) for the purchase of food and medicine and shipped almost 500,000 pounds of clothing and shoes and almost 18,000 cans of food. In recognition of his relief work and his impact on German youth in the 1920s and 30s, Weiser was awarded the Order of Merit First Class by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957.

Return to Academia

Weiser returned to juvenile fiction with his 1949 Rothäute und Bleichgesichter (Redskins and Palefaces). Over the next thirteen years he would produce a steady stream of publications similar in kind to his prewar output: biographies of Jesuit missionaries, Bildungsromane, etc. All of them were still in German, although one of them, his travelogue to the Holy Land, later appeared in English. During this same period Weiser also had a minor influence on film. His 1936 Het lied van de Donau (The Song of the Danube) was the inspiration for the 1947 Dutch movie Jeugdstorm (Youth Storm), and his children’s classic The Light of the Mountains was made into a German film in 1955 titled Het licht der bergen. According to the Internet Movie Database, Weiser is credited as a writer on a total of three movies. The final entry in his filmography, in which he is listed as the screenplay’s sole author, is a 1965 Yugoslavian television movie Sasvim Malo Skretanje (Quite a Little Turn).

Weiser continued his work in charitable services, administering the funds of the St. Joseph’s Mission Fund from 1950 to 1968. The 1950s would mark two major developments in his life. In 1950 he earned a second doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. Upon his return to the U.S. (by now an American citizen), he held academic instead of parochial positions. From 1950 to 1961 he was a professor of Philosophy and German at Emmanuel College (a women’s college in Boston founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur), and around the same time he also taught at Weston College, a Jesuit institution in Weston, Massachusetts. After Weston was integrated into Boston College in 1959, Weiser became a Spiritual Counselor in the Boston College School of Education (which had an all-female student body) from 1961-70. At Boston College he also taught courses in ethics, philosophy, and theology. By 1957, he was referring to himself as “a college professor by duty and habit.”

Boston College Emeritus Professor Mary T. Kinnane describes Weiser as “somewhat larger than life” and an “excellent colleague and a good friend.” She adds:

He was a distinguished international scholar in Linguistic Philosophy with a doctoral degree from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and the Gregorian in Rome. He had a diverse background in counseling as a Church pastor for eleven years and was a college professor for thirteen years. He had been Chaplain to the Von Trapp family, both in Austria and the United States.

Father Weiser was a proud man, with a marvelous humility in speech and mien. His books, The Christmas Book and Easter Book, are popular purchases at the Holy Seasons since they are especially rich in explaining the symbols of the seasons, their origins, and their spiritual importance. His account of the Holy Land is also impressive. As the speaker at School of Education Christmas Assemblies in Campion Hall, he explained the origins of the Christmas tree and its lighted decoration (“O Tannenbaum!”), and the angelic symbol of the pretzel! One short anecdote should be recalled since it represented Father’s attention to detail in the area of housekeeping. Twice a week, Father would suggest we have a simple lunch of soup and sandwich in his office, usually to discuss our programs for students, students with special needs, or our policy on student life and whatever agenda were pertinent. An early arrival to his office would find Father with large pieces of felt-like material attached to his shoes as he moved around rhythmically to polish his ever-shiny floor. How fortunate we all were and are to have been able to share the life of such fine and distinctive, marvelous Jesuits. How enriching for students and all!

Weiser influenced other students in the area as well. New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins (current Joseph Professor of Catholic Spirituality at Boston College) met him when she was just “a high school kid”:

He would come to give a talk at my best friend’s grandmother’s house in Wayland [Massachusetts] one evening a month to a group of conservative lay Catholics. We would get out of school to go out there, so we could ride her horses, go to the talk, spend the night, and get returned to the prep school the next day. Neither of us were Catholic.

After I became a Catholic my freshman year in college when I was seventeen, Fr. Weiser was my spiritual director, also aiding my German reading with a combination of the pious young adult novels he wrote (don’t remember a thing about them now) and his copies of Orientierung. He had been in the Jesuits with Hugo Rahner, so discussions of Karl Rahner were often filtered through Hugo who could actually write much better German! When I started a New Testament doctoral program after college, I was treated [by Fr. Weiser] to a slew of anti-Bultmann articles.

The Liturgical Turn

Kinnane’s allusion to The Christmas Book and The Easter Book brings us to the second major development in Weiser’s life at this time, his turn to heortology. He himself defines the field as “the historical science that explains the origin and meaning of feasts. The word ‘heortology’ is derived from the Greek heorte (feast) and logos (discourse).” And for him at least, that discourse includes not only “the origin, history, development, and observance” of Christian feasts but “their celebration in folklore” as well. It was Weiser’s experience of America that generated his interest in the topic. He writes:

I was deeply impressed by many aspects of American life. Among them was the charming sight of the popular Christmas celebration. This tradition had been molded into one unit out of the best national Christmas lore of various immigrant groups. It was only during the second half of the last century that our American Christmas observance came to be established.

Soon I discovered that most people have no clear notion of the origin, background, and true meaning of these customs which they observe in their homes. Since the great majority of our Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and other observances actually go back to the inspiration of liturgical thought and symbolism, I judged it a worthwhile subject to explain. Also a priestly subject; for, given the fact that our popular customs contain the radiation of the liturgy, the understanding of this radiation would make the celebration of our Christian feasts within the family warmer, holier, and more truly joyful. At the same time, a better grasp of the religious meaning and message of our family customs would give parents valuable help for the religious training of their little ones.

Weiser used his spare time to research, and very often he felt like abandoning the project because of the difficulty in finding reliable source material. It took him six years, but in the end he had published five books: The Christmas Book in 1952, The Easter Book in 1954, The Holyday Book and Religious Customs in the Family in 1956, and The Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs: The Year of the Lord in Liturgy and Folklore (a compendium of the first three).

Next week, we will examine the characteristics of Fr. Weiser’s liturgical theology.

A version of this article (with full annotation) appeared as “The Domestic Heortologist: An Introduction to Francis X. Weiser, S.J.” in Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 29:2 (2025), pp. 144-171. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.

The Leaving-taking of the Dormition in the Byzantine Rite

The custom of extending the most important feasts to a period of eight days was inherited by the Church from the Old Testament, which prescribes that this be done for Passover, the feast of Tabernacles, and the dedication of the temple. In the Roman Rite, this extension is simply called an octave, and when it is done, always lasts for seven days after the main feast. This is the original and oldest standard, universally attested for the celebration of Easter.

A Greek icon of the Great Deesis (i.e. “supplication”, the Virgin and the Baptist to either side of Christ), with most of the Twelve Great Feasts painted on the doors, ca. 1540-49. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Daderot, CC0 1.0. Universal.) 

In the Byzantine Rite, on the other hand, the length of such an extension varies from feast to feast, and the period is called the After-feast, while the final day is called the Leave-taking. Easter is ranked by itself above all other celebrations, and its Leave-taking is on the day before the Ascension; including Holy Saturday, this makes a total of forty days. Just beneath it in rank is a group called the Twelve Great Feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady. Most of these have a Fore-feast, the equivalent of a vigil in the Roman Rite, but that of Christmas lasts for five days, and that of Epiphany for four. I list them here with their length of the respective After-feasts, including the day of the Leave-taking.

• Sept. 8 – the Birth of the Mother of God (4 days)
• Sept. 14 – the Exaltation of the Cross (7 days)
• Nov. 21 – the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple (4 days)
• Dec. 25 – the Nativity of the Lord (6 days)
• Jan. 6 – the Theophany (8 days)
• Feb. 2 – the Presentation of the Lord (7 days)
• Mar. 25 – the Annunciation (no Afterfeast)
• Palm Sunday (no Afterfeast)
• The Ascension (8 days)
• Pentecost (6 days)
• Aug. 6 – The Transfiguration (7 days)
• Aug. 15 – the Dormition of the Mother of God (8 days)

To these we must add the very ancient feast of Mid-Pentecost, which is not counted among the twelve, but which nevertheless has an After-feast of seven days. Therefore, only three among the twelve, the Exaltation of the Cross, the Presentation of the Lord, and the Transfiguration, plus Mid-Pentecost, conform to the Old Testament manner of celebrating an octave.

Most of these variations can be explained very easily. The After-feast of the Nativity of the Virgin is interrupted by another very ancient feast, the Dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which is also the Fore-feast of the Exaltation; that of the Presentation of the Virgin imitates it. The eighth day of Christmas is itself a feast, that of the Circumcision, which is also the day of St Basil the Great; the eighth day of Pentecost is the Byzantine feast of All Saints. The Annunciation has no After-feast since it always occurs in Lent or within the Easter octave; for Palm Sunday, an After-feast would extend into Holy Week.

An icon of the Dormition of the Virgin painted by El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos; 1541-1614), ca. 1565, venerated in a church titled to this feast on the Greek island of Syros, about 75 miles to the southeast of Athens. In 1983, the artist’s signature was discovered on the base of the candelabrum; it is believed to be one of the last works he executed while still living in his native place, the island of Crete, before moving to Venice in 1567.

The After-feast of the Dormition presents a particularly interesting case. August 15th was a feast of the Virgin before September 8th or November 21st were, although the first attestation of it as such does not explicitly call it the Dormition or Assumption. The length of its After-feast, 8 days, is that of the other two put together (four and four), indicating its place as the greatest of the Marian feasts. One may also note that it has the same length in toto as the Ascension, nine days, which reminds us not only of the essential similarity between the two feasts, but also of the nine choirs of Angels, since both feasts speak repeatedly of the Angels, and their wonder at seeing our human nature raised up to heaven.

“The Lord was taken up into the heavens, that He might send the Paraclete to the world; the heavens prepare His throne, the clouds His rising; the Angels wonder, seeing a man above them…” (the first hymn of Vespers of the Ascension).

“The Angels are astonished, seeing the Dormition of the Virgin, how She departs from earth on high.” (The refrain of the first Ode of the first Canon of the Dormition.)

The Byzantine Rite also has a formally designated beginning to its liturgical year on September 1st, known as the feast of the Indiction, a name which originated with an ancient Roman cycle of taxation. The first of the Twelve Great Feasts to occur after the Indiction, and the first to occur in history, is the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on September 8th; the last to occur before it, and the last to occur in history, is the Assumption. It seems very unlikely that this arrangement is merely coincidental.

The Indiction is also considered the day on which God began to create the world, a tradition to which its liturgical texts repeatedly refer. For example, the tropar at the Divine Liturgy reads as follows.

“Maker of all creation, Who settest times and seasons in Thy power, bless the crown of the year of Thy goodness, o Lord, keeping in peace Thy kings and Thy city, by the prayers of the Mother of God, and save us.”

Since the Indiction represents the beginning of creation, note that between it and the Birth of the Virgin there are seven day inclusive: the six days of creation, and the seventh on which God rested, as recounted at the beginning of Genesis. This is the creation which falls in Adam, and awaits redemption in the New Adam, a redemption which begins with the coming of His Mother into the world, the feast that is celebrated on September 8th.

After the Leave-taking of the Dormition on August 23rd, the remainder of the year is eight days, August 24-31. These days represent the creation after Christ restored it by rising on the day after the seventh, which is both the first day, the beginning a new creation, and the eighth. The Virgin Mary, the first person to be taken into the glory of heaven body and soul, is the first-fruits of the redemption of our fallen humanity, the redemption which will be perfected at the end of time in the rest of us.

Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom “Brick by Brick”

On December 12, Our Lady of Victory Press published Matthew Plese’s latest book “Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom,” a serialization of his articles published on OnePeterFive over the past few years on customs related to both the temporal and sanctoral cycles. Plese mentions the following in the preface to the book:

The Church’s Liturgical Year is a harmonious interplay of feasts and fasts interwoven in both the temporal and sanctoral cycles that define the rhythm and rhyme of Catholic life. While there are many customs associated with the seasons of the liturgical year and high-ranking feast days, the entire year is replete with opportunities to live out our Catholic heritage through the customs our forefathers instituted.
          The Church’s annual liturgical calendar is comprised of two different, concurrent annual cycles. First, the Proper of the Seasons, or Temporal Cycle, traces the earthly life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Roman Catholic Church, it consists mainly of Sundays related to the various liturgical seasons – that is, the seven liturgical seasons contained in two cycles of its own: the Christmas Cycle and the Easter Cycle. It starts with Advent then goes through Christmas, Epiphany, Septuagesima, Lent, Easter, and Time after Pentecost. The determination of the date of Easter dictates nearly all the other dates in this cycle. But there is a second cycle: the Proper of the Saints, called the Sanctoral Cycle, which is the annual cycle of feast days not necessarily connected with the seasons.

Father John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary defines what is meant by a custom:

A long-standing practice that takes on the force of law. No custom is ever valid that contradicts a divine law, whether natural or positive, nor does a custom abrogate ecclesiastical law unless it is reasonable and has been legitimately in practice over a period of forty full years. Where the ecclesiastical law explicitly forbids contrary customs, the latter can be valid only if they are reasonable and in legitimate existence for at least a century or from time immemorial.

Customs Have the Force of Law

Customs are not simply part a discardable part of our heritage as Roman Catholics. Customs have a deep and permanent place in the lives of Catholics of all Rites. St. Jerome in Letter 71 states, “The best advice that I can give you is this: Church traditions - especially when they do not run counter to the faith - are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down...the traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws.” St. Thomas Aquinas likewise asserts: “Custom has the force of law, abrogates law, and interprets law.” This is why, for instance, Saturday fasting became law in the West but not in the East by way of custom. (I discuss this traditional understanding of custom as law in further detail here.) 
 

Customs Illustrate True Liturgical Diversity

Plese reminds us that our customs, which are aligned with the Traditional Latin Mass and the culture around it, are our birthright, which no one, no matter his office, can legitimately take from us:

It’s also important to realize that each rite in the Catholic Church (e.g., Roman, Maronite, Chaldean, etc.) has its own liturgical calendar, and some have multiple uses or forms of the calendar. Even within the same use or form, there are variations according to local customs. For instance, the patron saint of a church or of the cathedral would be ranked higher in the liturgical calendar of that local jurisdiction. Even in the Roman Rite itself, different dioceses, countries, and religious orders would keep some different feastdays. These were listed in the Mass in Some Places (pro aliquibus locis) supplement to the Missal. Beyond the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Lyon, and Bragan Rites are also all part of the Western liturgical tradition. So too are the various Rites for religious orders (e.g., the Carmelite Rite, the Carthusian Rite, the Dominican Rite). These are also part of the Roman Catholic Church. No one has ever doubted the legitimacy of this liturgical diversity.
          Those who try to discredit the Traditional Latin Mass may try to falsely claim that all Catholics must observe the same calendar of saints. But this is not the case as seen in the liturgical calendar diversity in the different Rites of the Church and in the Roman Rite itself. Even Summorum Pontificium affirmed that the continued use of the older Roman calendar in the traditional Mass and Breviary is permissible.

Customs Help Us Live Deeper Liturgical Lives

Initially when people are new to the Traditional Latin Mass, they are in awe of its mystery, splendor, and reverence. But as time goes on, they should go deeper and deeper into the mind of the Church and breathe in and live out catholicity to its core. And one important way of doing just that is to learn and live out Catholic customs. Plese mentions further as to the rationale for the book:

Beyond assisting at Mass and praying the Divine Office, we can and should observe the forgotten customs that further underscored authentic Catholic culture. Catholic culture is more than just going to Mass – much more. Catholic culture is built on fasting periods, assisting at Processions, having various items blessed at different parts of the year (e.g. herbs on August 15th, grapes on September 8th, wine on December 27th). It features days of festivity like during Martinmas and promotes family time and charitable works like visits to grandparents on Easter Monday. It is replete with food customs to celebrate the end of fasting periods and filled with special devotions during periods of penance. It is our heritage. These traditions are our birthright. They are ours as much as they were our ancestors. We must reclaim them. We must spread them. We must love them and observe them. And this book will show today’s Catholic how.

The outline of the book shows the depth covered which goes beyond the “major” seasons of the liturgical year. Customs surrounding the Nativity of our Lady, St. Clement’s Day, St. Anthony’s Day, and many others illustrate the tremendous extent to which customs would permeate Catholic culture. It is no exaggeration to say that they are the substance of a daily life under the sign of the crucified and risen Savior and of His friends, the saints and angels.

Notice that Corpus Christi does not only present the characteristic Procession but also mentions how the day is known as the “Day of Wreaths” in France. This is then followed by indulgences for Corpus Christi as well as some for Thursdays year-round. As such the book is not only concerned with relating former European traditions but giving readers the ability to act on them and pick up the gauntlet in keeping them alive in practice.

Customs Show Diversity in the Midst of Catholicity

Plese draws upon Father Weiser, Dom Guéranger, Cardinal Shuster, the Roman Ritual, and many other sources to present a comprehensive listing of Catholic customs. The book is available in PDF and in Kindle in addition to paperback, and the Kindle and PDF versions also include links to relevant devotions and articles for those wanting even more.

The book also goes beyond mere customs and mentions former laws of precepts in the form of both former Holy Days of Obligation and former obligatory fasting days. Plese shares detail on these so that we can keep devotionally what our forefathers kept under obligation.

I encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this book and live out the customs contained in its pages throughout the new year. Catholic customs are truly part of our patrimony as Father Scott Haynes, a fellow endorser of the book, reminds us:

Catholics who want to integrate the Catholic customs of ages past will deeply appreciate Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom. Beginning with Advent and continuing through the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year, this complete compendium of Catholic traditions by Matthew Plese will help integrate the ancient traditions of our faith in our families and homes. This treasured volume presents the fasts and feasts, the indulgences and blessings which are the patrimony of our Catholic people.

The Last Sunday after Pentecost 2023

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: When you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let him understand who readeth. Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains, and he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house, and he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath. For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand. If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out: Behold he is in the secret chambers, believe it not. For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together.

The central panel of the Last Judgment, ca. 1435, by the German painter Stephan Lochner (ca. 1410-51). Image from Wikimedia Commons by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0.

And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels with a trumpet, and a great voice, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them. And from the fig tree learn a parable: When the branch thereof is now tender, and the leaves come forth, you know that summer is nigh. So you also, when you shall see all these things, know ye that it is nigh, even at the doors. Amen I say to you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass. (Matthew 24, 15-35, the Gospel of the Last Sunday after Pentecost.)

Lammas Day

Lammas Fair at Ballycastle, artist unknown

Not all of the Church’s annual observances can be found on her official calendar. Throughout Catholic history, interesting folk customs, often in tandem with local agricultural cycles, have come to take on a religious significance. One such example is August 1. For many centuries it was the feast of St Peter’s Chains, while in the post-Vatican-II calendar it is the feast of St. Alphonsus Ligouri. But in medieval and Renaissance England, the first of August was better known as Lammas Day.

“Lammas” is a contraction of “Loaf Mass,” one of about two dozen words in the English language that have the word “Mas” or “Mass” in them. (Christmas is the most famous, but there are others as well.) Lammas Day was the first harvest festival of the season, the time to celebrate the first-fruits of the wheat and barley crops. These cereals were important to the Anglo-Saxons, as can be seen from other aspects of their language: the English word “lord” means “bread-guardian,” while “lady” means “bread-kneader.”

We know that Lammas Day was a feast of Bread, but we are not entirely certain how it was celebrated. Mention is made in some sources of taking a loaf to Mass that day to have it blessed, but unlike other seasonal blessings (such as those found in the Roman Ritual), there does not seem to be a specific formula. We do, however, have one fascinating fragment from a nonliturgical source that recommends blessed Lammas bread as a mouse repellent. If you place crumbs of blessed bread in the four corners of your barn, and a cross on the floor of the barn entrance with the Pater Noster written on both pieces of wood, your barn will be just like the city of Jerusalem, where mice “do not live and cannot have power”, and where they cannot “rejoice with the wheat”! [Eleanor Parker, Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year (London: Reaktion Books, 2022), 196]

Lammas loaf owl with salt eyes

The origins of the feast are similarly shrouded in mystery. It is reasonable to suspect a pre-Christian precedent, and indeed there was an Irish festival on August 1 called Lughnasadh. The complicating factor is that the earliest Anglo-Saxon writings about the Church calendar do not mention the feast at all; it is only around the ninth century that written confirmation of the feast emerges, and with no reference to a pagan predecessor.

There are three things that we can safely conclude.

First, Lammas Day was, at least in some places or some times, an occasion of great festivity. The Ould Lammas Fair in Northern Ireland, for example, has been celebrated more or less continually for four hundred years--even though it is now held near the end of August.

Second, Lammas Day has an inescapably Eucharistic character. The New Testament records two slightly different versions of the Our Father. In Luke’s Gospel the verse is, “Give us, this day, our daily bread,” (Luke 11:3), and in Matthew’s it is, “Give us, this day, our supersubstantial bread.” (Matt. 6.11) Luke’s version can be interpreted as a petition for earthly sustenance, Matthew’s as a petition for the heavenly sustenance of the Blessed Sacrament. But the two categories are not mutual exclusive. Just as the Miracle of the Fishes and Loaves is a foreshadowing of the Miracle of the Eucharist, giving thanks to God for one’s daily bread is a foretaste of giving thanks to Him for the Bread of Life.

Tabgha Church Mosaic, Israel

Third, Lammas Day once had a curious impact on our language. People used the holiday as an important marker on the calendar. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet we learn that Juliet’s fourteenth birthday is on “Lammas-eve at night.” (I.iii.19) The festival was also used to designate property: “Lammas lands” were the fields used in common for winter grazing, while “Lammas wheat” was winter wheat, presumably planted in early August. And it helped in describing plants: “Lammas apples” were apples that ripened around August 1, while “Lammas growth” was the second set of shoots or leaves produced by a tree in the summer.

Some Lammas growth on oak, Titwood Farm, North Ayrshire. A second flush of foliage that occurs in around August.

Most curiously, Lammas Day inspired a whimsical term for “not ever.” A “latter Lammas” is a day that will never come, and “at latter Lammas” means never. History does not give us the reasoning behind these curious expressions, but my guess is that because Lammas was the first harvest festival of the year, a later Lammas that occurs afterwards is, logically speaking, impossible.

Such nomenclature is of course outdated, but it reminds us of the ways in which the Faith affected not only the beliefs and mores of the faithful but their perception and categorization of reality. Even little things like loaves of bread were viewed through the sacramental prism of the divine mysteries and its annual sacred cycle. Gratefully relishing God’s grandeur in the smallest of His creatures is a privilege of the Christian believer; please God may we not have to wait till latter Lammas to see such wide-scale public thanksgiving again.

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.