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.

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.

The Pentecost Exsultet

From time immemorial, it has been the custom of the Roman Rite to celebrate Pentecost as a baptismal feast on a par with Easter. At the end of the fourth century, Pope St Siricius (384-99) wrote in a letter to a Spanish bishop that the sacrament of baptism was to be celebrated on Pentecost as on Easter. (Epist. ad Himerium, cap. 2: PL XIII, 1131B-1148A) Pope St Leo I (440-61) reasserted that this was the Church’s practice in a letter to the bishops of Sicily, exhorting them to follow the example of the Apostle Peter, who baptized three-thousand persons on Pentecost day. (Epist. XVI ad universos episcopos per Siciliam constitutos: PL LIV, 695B-704A)

As we would expect, therefore, all pertinent liturgical books of the Roman Rite, going as far back as we have them, reflect this tradition. For example, the very oldest collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, ca. 550 A.D., contains a Mass “on Pentecost, for those coming up from the font.” All Roman lectionaries attest that some of the prophecies from the Easter vigil are repeated at that of Pentecost, and the ancient sacramentaries all have prayers to accompany these readings.

The prayers which follow the prophecies at the vigil of Pentecost in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 A.D. 

Of course, the two vigils are not celebrated in exactly the same way. In the Missal of St Pius V, the vigil of Pentecost begins with the first prophecy, and everything that precedes the readings at the Easter vigil (the blessing of the fire, the procession into the church with the reed, and the Exsultet) are omitted. This is consonant with the received tradition of the Roman Rite in its many uses and variants.

However, I recently discovered, via a footnote in a book [1], that in the Middle Ages, two places in France, Reims and Besançon, had a special form of the Exsultet for the vigil of Pentecost. The text was edited in 1954 in an article by the Benedictine scholar Dom Anselm Strittmatter, but not translated. I believe that this article will therefore be the first English translation of it ever made. According to Dom Strittmatter, the text predates the liturgical reform of Innocent III (1198-1216), since it lacks the special intercession for the Holy Roman Emperor which was added in that period; the author is completely unknown.

The façade of the cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Besançon. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Morio60, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The first part, from the opening to the preface dialog, is exactly the same as the normal Exsultet, so I will not include it here. Likewise, the opening clause of the second part makes only one small change, by adding the words “with the Holy Spirit.”

Vere dignum et justum est, invisibilem Deum Patrem omnipotentem Filiumque ejus unigenitum, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum cum Sancto Spiritu, toto cordis ac mentis affectu et vocis ministerio personare: Qui pro nobis aeterno Patri Adae debitum solvit, et veteris piaculi cautionem pio cruore detersit.

Truly it is worthy and just to proclaim with all the affection of our heart and mind, and with the service of our voice the invisible God, the Father almighty, and his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit; Who for us paid to his eternal Father the debt of Adam, and by his sacred blood canceled the guilt contracted by original sin.

This is the point at which the Pentecost text begins to diverge very notably from the Easter one, while keeping many phrases and expressions from the original. In order to show this, I will here give each section of the Easter version in Latin and English, followed by the Pentecost variant.

Easter A: Haec sunt enim festa paschalia, in quibus verus ille Agnus occiditur, cujus sanguine postes fidelium consecrantur. Haec nox est, in qua primum patres nostros, filios Israel, eductos de Aegypto, Mare Rubrum sicco vestigio transire fecisti.

For these is the Paschal feast, in which the true Lamb was slain, by whose blood the doors of the faithful are consecrated. This is the night in which formerly thou didst lead our forefathers, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, and cause them pass dry-footed through the Red Sea.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted in a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, a reasonably common motif in early Christian funerary art. The front of the sarcophagus has been sawed off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles in France.

Pentecost A: Haec sunt enim sacra solemnia, in quibus mortis perpetuae victor, vitaeque sempiternae largitor, humanae postquam conditionis substantiam non solum ab inferis eruit, sed ad superna polorum fastigia triumphans subvexit, Spiritus infusione Paracliti juxta suae verbum promissionis filios ditavit adoptionis.

For this is the sacred solemnity, in which the Conqueror of perpetual death, and granter of everlasting life, after he had not only rescued the substance of our human condition from hell, but (also) brought it up to the great heights of heaven, by the pouring forth of the Spirit, the Paraclete, enriched the sons of adoption according to the word of his promise.

Easter B: Haec igitur nox est, quae peccatorum tenebras columnae illuminatione purgavit.

This then is the night which dissipated the darkness of sin by the light of the pillar.

Pentecost B: Haec igitur dies est, quae peccatorum tenebras sua claritate purgavit.

This then is the day which dissipated the darkness of sin by its brightness.

Easter C: Haec nox est, quae hodie per universum mundum in Christo credentes, a vitiis saeculi et caligine peccatorum segregatos, reddit gratiae, sociat sanctitati.

This is the night which now through the whole world sets apart those that believe in Christ from the vices of the world and darkness of sin, restores them to grace, and unites them to sanctity.

Pentecost C: Haec dies est quae hodie per universum mundum in Christum credentes a vitiis saeculi segregatos, Sanctique Spiritus infusione purgatos, reddit gratiae, sociat sanctitati.

This is the day which now through the whole world set apart those that believe in Christ from the vices of the world, and having cleansed them by the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit, restores them to grace, and unites them to sanctity.

Easter D: Haec nox est, in qua, destructis vinculis mortis, Christus ab inferis victor ascendit. Nihil enim nobis nasci profuit, nisi redimi profuisset.

This is the night on which Christ, having broken the chains of death, rose in victory from hell. For naught had it availed us to be born, if it had not availed us to be redeemed.

Pentecost D: Haec dies est in qua, fugatis originalis peccati tenebris, Spiritus Parclitus ad suorum corda fidelium confirmanda, in igneis linguis de supernis descendit, non ut repentinus visitator, sed ut perpetuus consolator, aeternusque cohabitator.

This is the day on which, when the darkness of original sin had been put to flight, the Spirit, the Paraclete, to confirm the hearts of his faithful, descended in tongues of fire, not as a visitor unlooked for, but as a perpetual consoler that would dwell with us forever.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin Mary and the Apostles at Pentecost, ca. 1335-45, by the Florentine painter Taddeo Gaddi (ca. 1290 - 1366).

Easter E: O mira circa nos tuae pietatis dignatio! O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis: ut servum redimeres, Filium tradidisti!

O, the wondrous regard of thy goodness towards us! O, the inestimable love of thy affection! To redeem a slave, thou didst delivered up a Son.

Pentecost E: O mira circa nos Dei pietatis dignatio! O inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis: ut hominem ab aeternitate dejectum, plasmator universalis ad superna reduceret, quos per Verbi sui doctrinam accenderat, per Sancti Spiritus virtutem confirmat.

O, the wondrous regard of God’s goodness towards us! O, the inestimable love of his affection! That when man had been cast down from eternity, the creator of the universe should bring him back on high, even those whom he once enkindled through the teaching of his word, and now confirms through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Easter F: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!

O surely necessary sin of Adam, which hath been blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault, that merited to have such and so great a Redeemer!

Pentecost F: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae Spiritum Sanctum habere meruit Consolatorem!

O surely necessary sin of Adam, which hath been blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault, that merited to have the Holy Spirit as its Consoler.

The Fall of Adam depicted in an Exsultet scroll made somewhere near Benevento southern Italy in the second half of the 11th century, now kept in the museum of the cathedral of Pisa. The text is upside down because the scroll was unrolled from the pulpit as the deacon sang it, and the pictures became visible to the faithful standing below. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Easter G: O vere beata nox, quae sola meruit scire tempus et horam, in qua Christus ab inferis resurrexit! Haec nox est, de qua scriptum est: Et nox sicut dies illuminabitur, et nox illuminatio mea in deliciis meis.

O truly blessed night, which alone merited to know the time and hour at which Christ rose again from hell. This is the night of which it is written: And the night shall be enlightened as the day, and the night is my illumination in my delights.

Pentecost G: Haec dies est, quae sola meruit scire tempus et horam, in qua Spiritus Sanctus, ab arce divinitatis irruens, ut invisibilis super Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum baptizatum in columbae specie descendit, ita super Apostolos in igneis linguis apparuit; ut post Redemptoris nostri magnificentiam, credentibus augeret sapientiam, accumularet gratiam, formaret constantiam.

This is the day which alone merited to know the time and hour at which the Holy Spirit, rushing down from the height of the divinity, just as once he came down invisibly upon our Lord Jesus Christ when he was baptized in the appearance of a dove, did likewise appear upon the Apostle in tongues of fire; so that the glorification of our Redeemer, he might increase the wisdom of them that believe, increase grace, and fill them with strength.

From this point forward, there is only one really notable difference from the standard text of the Exsultet, and so I shall simply give the Pentecost variants in parentheses.

Hujus igitur sanctificatio noctis (diei) fugat scelera, culpas lavat, et reddit innocentiam lapsis et maestis laetitiam. Fugat odia, concordiam parat et curvat imperia.

Therefore the sanctification of this night (day) banishes crimes, washes away sins, and restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to the sorrowful. It banishes enmities, produces harmony, and humbles empires.

In hujus igitur noctis (diei) gratia, suscipe, sancte Pater, laudis hujus sacrificium vespertinum, quod tibi in hac cerei oblatione solemni, per ministrorum manus de operibus apum, sacrosancta reddit Ecclesia. Sed jam columnae hujus praeconia novimus, quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit. Qui, licet sit divisus in partes, mutuati tamen luminis detrimenta non novit. Alitur enim liquantibus ceris, quas in substantiam pretiosae hujus lampadis apis mater eduxit.

Therefore on this sacred night (day), receive, o holy Father, the evening sacrifice of this praise, which thy most holy Church renders to Thee in this solemn offering of a candle by the hands of her ministers, made out of the labor of bees. But already we have known the praises of this pillar, which the bright fire lights for the honor of God; which fire, though it be divided in parts, suffereth no loss from the sharing of its light, for it is fed by the melted wax, which the mother bee brought forth for the substance of this precious lamp.

Beekeepers depicted in an Exsultet scroll made at the abbey of Monte Cassino ca. 1075. 

This is the last place where the Pentecost version differs significantly from the original. 

Easter: O vere beata nox, in qua terrenis caelestia, humanis divina junguntur!

O truly blessed night, which plundered the Egyptians, and enriched the Hebrews. A night, in which heaven is united to earth, and God to man.

Pentecost: O vere beata dies, quae illuminavit credentes, ditavit fideles; dies in qua linguarum diversitates, in unius fidei confessione junguntur.

O truly blessed day, which enlightened believers, and enriched the faithful; the day on which the differences of tongue are united the confession of the one Faith.

Oramus ergo te, Domine, ut cereus iste in honorem tui nominis consecratus, ad noctis (diei) hujus caliginem destruendam, indeficiens perseveret. Et in odorem suavitatis acceptus, supernis luminaribus misceatur. Flammas ejus lucifer matutinus inveniat: ille, inquam, lucifer, qui nescit occasum, Christus Filius tuus, qui, regressus ab inferis, humano generi serenus illuxit.

We pray thee therefore, o Lord, that this candle, consecrated to the honor of thy name, may continue unfailing to dissipate the darkness this night (day); and being accepted unto a sweet savor, may be united with the lights of heaven. Let the morning star find it alight, that star, I say, which knoweth no setting, Christ Thy Son, who, being returned from hell, shone brightly upon mankind.

In the conclusion, the bracketed text is omitted in the Pentecost text, and the bolded words added.

Precamur ergo te, Domine: ut nos famulos tuos, omnemque clerum, et devotissimum populum, una cum beatissimo Papa nostro N. et Antistite nostro N., et gloriosissimo imperatore nostro N., quiete temporum concessa, in his paschalibus gaudiis (sacris solemniis) assidua protectione [regere, gubernare, et] conservare digneris. Per...

We beseech thee therefore, o Lord, that in these joys of Easter (these holy solemnities), thou may deign to grant peaceable times, and with thy constant protection to [rule, guide, and] preserve us thy servants, and all the clergy, and the most devout people, together with our most blessed Pope N. and our bishop N., and our most glorious emperor N. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ...

The Byzantine emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, and below, Pope John XIX with two deacons, depicted in an Exsultet scroll made ca. 1025, now kept in the diocesan museum at Bari. The Exsultet scroll as a form of manuscript was unique to southern Italy, which was under the rule of the Byzantine Empire until it was conquered by the Normans at the end of the 11th century.

[1] “The Exsultet in Southern Italy”, by Thomas Forest Kelly. (Oxford, 1996). On p. 43, the author cites the article by Dom Strittmatter, “ The Pentecost Exsultet of Reims and Besançon,” published in the anthology “Studies in art and literature for Belle da Costa Greene.” (Princeton, 1954)

The Vigil of Pentecost 2025

IN those days: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me forth in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of a plain that was full of bones. And he led me about through them on every side; now they were very many upon the face of the plain, and they were exceeding dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, dost thou think these bones shall live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” And he said to me, “Prophesy concerning these bones, and say to them, ‘Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will send spirit into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and will cover you with skin: and I will give you spirit and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” And I prophesied as he had commanded me, and as I prophesied there was a noise, and behold a commotion, and the bones came together, each one to its joint. And I saw, and behold the sinews, and the flesh came up upon them: and the skin was stretched out over them, but there was no spirit in them.

The Vision of Ezechiel, 1630, by Francisco Collantes (Madrid, 1599-1656); Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

And he said to me, “Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit, ‘Thus saith the Lord God: Come, spirit, from the four winds, and blow upon these slain, and let them live again.’ ” And I prophesied as he had commanded me, and the spirit came into them, and they lived, and they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. And he said to me, “Son of man, all these bones are the house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people, and will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have opened your sepulchres, and shall have brought you out of your graves, o my people, and shall have put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall make you rest upon your own land: saith the Lord God.’ ” (Ezechiel 37, 1-14, the sixth prophecy of the Vigil of Pentecost, and seventh of the Easter vigil.)

This passage was accepted by the Church Fathers from the most ancient times as a prophecy of the resurrection of the body at the end of the world, and hence of the Resurrection of Christ that makes this possible. In the later second century, St Irenaeus of Lyon writes:

“Now Isaias thus declares (26, 19), that He who at the beginning created man, did promise him a second birth after his dissolution into earth: ‘The dead shall rise again, and they who are in the tombs shall arise, and they who are in the earth shall rejoice. … ’ And Ezekiel speaks as follows: ‘And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and the Lord led me forth in the Spirit, and set me down in the midst of the plain, and this place was full of bones. And He caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were many upon the surface of the plain very dry. And He said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I said, Lord, Thou who hast made them dost know. And He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and thou shalt say to them, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord to these bones, Behold, I will cause the spirit of life to come upon you, and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh again upon you, and I will stretch skin upon you, and will put my Spirit into you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. … ’ ”

It is cited to the same effect by Tertullian, St Cyprian and St Ambrose in the West, by Origen, St Cyril of Jerusalem and St John Chrysostom in the East, among many others.

A Christian sarcophagus of the first quarter of the 4th century, with a representation of Ezekiel’s vision of the bones on the left, and the Adoration of the Magi on the right. The figures on the far left are cleverly shown in various stages of resurrection; the standing figure next to them is Christ, who is holding a thaumaturgical wand to indicate that He is performing a miracle, as Ezekiel looks on from behind. 

In the Byzantine Rite, this lesson is read at Orthros of Holy Saturday, one of the most beautiful services of the year, commonly called Jerusalem Matins. This is the only day on which this long and complicated ceremony ends with a special synaxis of three readings: Ezekiel 37, 1-14; 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 and Galatians 3, 13-14 (as a single reading, titled to the former); and Matthew 27, 62-66, which tells of the setting of the guards at the Lord’s tomb. Among the Slavs, it is sometimes sung in a special setting; this recording was made at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, nine years ago. (The first few times I attended this service, I knew barely a word of Church Slavonic, and had no idea what was happening most of the time. It was sung rather more slowly than it is here, and the cantor used a score with all the notes printed out, rather than a lectionary, so I thought it was some kind of solo motet, a lamentation for the Lord’s death.)

This English version is also very beautiful; the prophecy is preceded by a chant from a Psalm called a prokimen, like most Scriptural readings in the Byzantine Rite other than the Gospel. This recording skips the Epistle and its prokimen, and goes straight to the Alleluia before the Gospel, one of the most beautiful in the repertoire.

Corpus Christi 2024 Photopost (Part 1)

First of all, my apologies for the delay in getting around to posting these; after a long period of travel, I caught a bug and was feeling very much under the weather for several days. Secondly, there will be at least one more post in this series, possibly two, and there is always room and time for more, so please feel free to send in your photos of recent liturgies (Pentecost, Corpus Christ, Sacred Heart etc.) to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org. Don’t forget to include the name and location of the church, and any other information you think important. Thanks once again to all our contributors!    

Shrine of Our Lady of Mt Carmel – New York City

Mass of the vigil of Pentecost

Ringing the bells at the Gloria.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Vigil of Pentecost 2024

It is worthy and just that the things of heaven and of earth should praise Thee, o God, who by Thy Spirit teachest us to reject the things of earth, and follow those of heaven, to restrain the proud flesh with fasts, to cleanse the heart with continual lamentations, not to be raised up in prosperity, or cast down in adversity, to hope for the promise of truth, to await the consolation of the Spirit, to keep watch for the coming of the Paraclete. From this, as we prepare ourselves, o Lord, for the joys of Thy promises, we ask that the power of Thy grace and the blessing of the Holy Spirit descend upon us; that being renewed and purified by Him, we may praise and magnify Him who ruleth in the equality of the Godhead with Thee and the Father, and thus say: Holy, Holy, Holy... (The Mozarabic Preface for the Mass of the Vigil of Pentecost.)

The Most Holy Trinity, ca. 1480-90, by the Spanish painter Miguel Ximénez, flor. 1462-1502; public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Dignum et justum est, ut te Deum et caelestia et terréna collaudent: Qui nos Spíritu tuo doces terréna respúere, caelestia sectári, carnem coercére jejuniis insolentem, corda purgáre contínua lamentatióne, non attolli in prósperis, non déjici in adversis, veritátis speráre promissum, Spíritus praestolári solacium, Parácliti sustinére adventum. Ex hoc, Dómine, tuórum praemissórum nos gaudiis praeparantes, rogámus ut descendat super nos gratiae tuae virtus, et benedictio Sancti Spíritus; quo innováti atque mundáti, eum tecum et cum Patre aequáli deitáte regnantem, laudémus, magnificémus, atque ita dicámus: Sanctus...

The Character of Pentecost in Other Rites

Last week, I published a two-part article on the historical character of Pentecost in the Roman Rite, divided into three topics: the feast’s baptismal character, its octave (part 1), and its relationship to the summer Ember Days (part 2). As is so often the case, other rites have developed customs analogous to those of Rome, of which I will here give a brief and certainly not comprehensive account. The parts about the Ambrosian Rite are taken in part from notes by Nicola de’ Grandi.

On the vigil of Pentecost, the Ambrosian Rite has a special ritual, by which a highly simplified form of Mass is celebrated in the middle of a highly simplified form of Vespers. This is done on only two other days, the vigils of Christmas and Epiphany. (The Mass of Holy Thursday is also celebrated within Vespers, but not simplified in the same way.)

Vespers begins with a responsorial chant called a lucernarium (video above), the hymn Jam Christus astra ascenderat, which the Roman Rite sings at Lauds of Pentecost, and another brief responsory. The psalmody, which would normally be sung at this point, is omitted, and four readings from the Old Testament are said. Unlike the prophecies of the Roman vigil of Pentecost, these are not repeated from the Easter vigil, but one of them, the third, is also said on the eve of Epiphany.

- Isaiah 11, 1-9b: the prophet describes the sevenfold nature of the Holy Spirit.

- Genesis 28, 10-22: Jacob’s vision of the Ladder.

- IV Kings 2, 1-12: Elijah and Elisha at the Jordan; the former is taken away in the fiery chariot.

- III Kings 3, 5-14: God gives the gift of wisdom to Solomon.

A medieval fresco of Elijah in the Fiery Chariot, in the cathedral of Anagni, Italy. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The first three of these are followed by a psalmellus, the Ambrosian equivalent of the gradual, and a prayer, the fourth by a cantus, the Ambrosian equivalent of the tract, which is also said after the last of the six prophecies of the Easter vigil. This cantus is only the first verse of Psalm 41, where the Roman tract has three.

As in the Roman Rite, the blessing of the baptismal font is then repeated exactly as on Easter night, followed by the administration of baptism, and the Litany of the Saints. On Easter night, the blessing concludes with the following prayer.

“Celebratis atque perfectis divini Baptismatis sacramentis, Domino caeli et terræ, Deo Patri omnipotenti, indefessas gratias referamus: ipsumque supplices postulemus, uti nos atque omnem familiam suam [gloriosae Resurrectionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi] annuat esse participes. Præstante eodem Domino nostro Jesu Christo Filio suo, secum vivente atque regnante Deo in unitate Spiritus Sancti per omnia secula seculorum.

Having celebrated and completed the sacraments of divine baptism, let us give untiring thanks to the Lord of heaven and earth, God the Father almighty, and humbly ask of Him, that He may allow us and all his family to participate in the glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; the same granting this, who liveth and reigneth with him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for all the ages of ages.”

On the vigil of Pentecost, this prayer is said with the words “gratiæ Spiritus Sancti – the grace of the Holy Spirit” in place of “the glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The priest then replaces his cope with a chasuble, and the Mass begins. All the variable chants are omitted, except for a brief Alleluia between the Epistle and Gospel, a custom analogous to the incomplete Roman Mass of the Easter vigil, which has no Introit, Offertory, or Communio. The Gloria and Creed are also omitted, and the Ambrosian Mass has no Kyrie or Agnus Dei, so the ordinary is stripped down to just the Sanctus (video below). The Ambrosian Rite prescribes the same Hanc igitur at the vigils of both Easter and Pentecost as the Roman Rite, which refers to those whom God has “vouchsafed to bring to a new birth from water and the Holy Spirit, granting them remission of all their sins.” (In both rites, it is also said for the whole week of the feast.)

The vigil concludes with the celebrant donning the cope again, the singing of the Magnificat with its antiphon, and a concluding prayer.

On the vigil and feast of Easter, and throughout the rest of Easter week, the Ambrosian Rite has two Masses for each day, one “of the solemnity”, and another “for the (newly) baptized.” Pentecost also has this feature, although not on the vigil. On the Easter Sunday, the Gospel of the Mass for the newly baptized is John 7, 37-39a, in obvious reference to baptism.

“On the last, and great day of the festivity, Jesus stood and cried, saying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him.”

At the parallel Mass of Pentecost, this Gospel is completed by adding the second part of verse 39, “for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Finally, we should note the Transitorium which is said at both Masses, the equivalent of the Roman Communio.

“Hymnum canite, Agni mundi, lavacro Fontis renati, satiati Corpore Christi. Hallelujah, hallelujah. – Sung the hymn, ye pure lambs, reborn in the washing of the font, fed with the Body of Christ, alleluia.”

In the Mozarabic Rite, references to baptism on the vigil of Pentecost are essentially limited to two of the four Scriptural readings. The New Testament reading is Acts 19, 1-6, two verses shorter than the Roman Epistle, ending with the words, “they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had imposed his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.” The Gospel is John 3, 1-16, Jesus’ colloquy with Nicodemus, a fundamental passage for the Church’s understanding of baptism.

“Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

On Pentecost itself, however, the opening chant of the Mass, the Officium, is as follows (Gal. 3, 27): “Vos qui in Christo baptizati estis, * Christum induistis, alleluia. V. Benedicti vos a Domino, qui fecit caelum et terram. Christum induistis, alleluia. Gloria et honor Patri… Christum induistis, alleluia. – Ye that have been baptized in Christ, * have put on Christ, alleluia. V. Blessed are ye by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Ye have put on Christ, alleluia. Glory and honor to the Father… Ye have put on Christ, alleluia.”

In the Byzantine Rite, almost these same words are sung in place of the Trisagion at the Divine Liturgy of Pentecost, as well as Easter; the custom was later extended to other major feasts of the Lord such as Christmas and Epiphany. (In this recording of the Divine Liturgy celebrated at the Pontifical Russian College in Rome on Pentecost of 2009, it begins at 14:30.)

The Gospel of the Divine Liturgy begins with the same verse as the Ambrosian Gospel cited above, John 7, 37, but continues to the end of the chapter, and includes verse 8, 12, as I have explained previously.

Pentecost does not have a Forefeast, the Byzantine equivalent of a Roman vigil; the day before it is one of several Saturdays especially dedicated to prayer for the dead. But like most of the greater feasts, Vespers is said in a more solemn form, which includes three readings from the Old Testament; the third of these, Ezekiel 36, 24-38, seems also to have been chosen in view of the feast’s ancient baptismal character.

“For I will take you from among the gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will cleanse you from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in the midst of you: and I will cause you to walk in my commandments, and to keep my judgments, and do them. And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

This same passage supplies the Introit and first reading of the Roman Mass of Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent, a day which was originally dedicated to the scrutiny of the catechumens preparing for baptism at Easter. That Introit was later assigned to private Masses of the vigil of Pentecost.

Like the Roman Rite, the Byzantine and Ambrosian Rites both celebrate Pentecost with an “octave” which terminates on Saturday. The Ambrosians share the Roman custom of keeping the feast of the Holy Trinity on the Sunday after Pentecost, but in the Byzantine Rite, Pentecost itself is the feast of the Holy Trinity, and Monday is a special Synaxis of the Holy Spirit. The Sunday after Pentecost is therefore the Byzantine feast of All Saints, celebrating the lives of the Saints as the fulfillment of the mission of the Holy Spirit.

Ember days are a uniquely Roman custom, and so, even though they are noted as fast days in the Ambrosian liturgical books, they have no special texts of their own.

In the Byzantine Rite, Vespers belongs to the day following it; there is no such thing as Second Vespers, even for a Sunday or a major feast like Pentecost. Therefore, the very first service of the period after the 50-days of Easter, Vespers on the evening of Pentecost Sunday, is liturgically part of Monday. Since it is a long-standing custom of the Rite never to kneel in Eastertide, a custom which goes back to a decree of the First Council of Nicea, this Vespers also includes the ritual known as the “gonyklisia – the bending of the knee.”

This consists of the recitation of several prayers interpolated between the regular Litanies (some of them extraordinarily long, even by Byzantine standards), which the priest ordinarily says while kneeling down before the iconostasis, facing the people. Here is an excerpt of the first prayer: the full texts can be read in Greek here, in Church Slavonic here, and in English here.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych and leader of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, reciting the kneeling prayers in the cathedral of the Resurrection in Kyiv. (Image from the website of the UGCC Seminary of the Three Holy Hierarchs in Kniazhychi.)

“…do Thou now hearken unto us who beseech Thee, and remember us, the lowly and condemned, and restore us from the captivity of our souls, having Thine own compassion as an intercessor for us. Accept us who fall down before Thee and cry: We have sinned. Upon Thee were we cast from the womb; even from our mother’s womb, Thou art our God. But since our days have wasted away in vanity, we have been stripped of Thine aid, and have been deprived of all defense. Yet taking courage in Thy compassions, we cry: Remember not the sins and ignorances of our youth, and cleanse us of our secret sins. Cast us not away in the time of our old age; when our strength hath waned, forsake us not; before we return to the earth, grant that we return unto Thee, and attend Thou unto us in Thy kindness and grace. Measure our iniquities by Thy compassions. Set the abyss of Thy compassions against the multitude of our transgressions. Look down from Thy holy height, O Lord, upon Thy people who stand here present and await from Thee Thine abundant mercy. Visit us in Thy goodness. Deliver us from the oppression of the devil. Preserve our life with Thy holy and sacred laws. Entrust Thy people unto a faithful Guardian Angel; gather us all into Thy Kingdom, grant forgiveness to them that hope in Thee; forgive them and us our sins. Purify us through the operation of Thy Holy Spirit, and destroy the enemy’s devices which are against us.”

As I noted previously, the purpose of the summer Ember days, as stated by the first witness to their existence, Pope St Leo the Great, is to prepare the Church for the longest stretch of the ecclesiastical year, the time after Pentecost. Although the Byzantine kneeling Vespers has much more of a penitential tone, it serves essentially the same purpose.

The Ancient Character of Pentecost in the Roman Rite (Part 1)

In this article, I propose to examine the ancient character of the feast of Pentecost in the Roman Rite: first, its role as a baptismal feast; second, the development of its octave; and third, its relationship to the Ember days. (This last section will be published separately as a second part.) In addition to the ancient liturgical sources, my guide in this consideration will be St Leo the Great, who was Pope from 440-61, and whose writings are one of the first and most important witnesses to the Roman liturgical tradition. Foremost among these are his three surviving sermons on Pentecost, and four on the following Ember days, but we begin with one of his letters.

A statue of St Leo on the façade of the cathedral of Florence. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Pentecost as a Baptismal Feast

At the end of the fourth century, Pope St Siricius (384-399) wrote in a letter to Himerius, bishop of Tarragon, that the sacrament of baptism was to be celebrated on Pentecost as on Easter. (Epist. ad Himerium, cap. 2: PL XIII, 1131B-1148A) Pope Leo reasserted that this was the Church’s practice in a letter to the bishops of Sicily, exhorting them to follow the example of the Apostle Peter, who baptized three-thousand persons on Pentecost day. (Epist. XVI ad universos episcopos per Siciliam constitutos: PL LIV, 695B-704A)

As we would expect, therefore, all pertinent liturgical books of the Roman Rite, as far back as we have them, reflect this tradition. The very oldest collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, ca. 550 A.D., contains a Mass “on Pentecost, for those coming up from the font.” The first part of its preface is almost identical to that of the Holy Spirit in the Missal of St Pius V, which is used from the vigil to the following Ember Saturday. (The variants of the Roman Missal are in parentheses.)

VD: Qui ascendit (-ens) super omnes cælos sedensque ad déxteram tuam, promissum Spíritum Sanctum (hodierna die) in filios adoptiónis effúdit.

It is truly meet and just… Who ascended (-ing) above all in the heavens, and sitting at Thy right hand, (this day) poured out the promised Holy Spirit upon the children of adoption.

Likewise, the variable Hanc igitur, which is also traditionally said on Easter, is very similar to the Pius V version. (In keeping with the erratic character of the Leonine Sacramentary, this is placed before a variable Communicantes, which differs from the traditional one.)

Hanc ígitur oblatiónem, quam tibi offérimus pro his quos ex aqua et Spíritu Sancto regeneráre dignátus es, tríbuens eis remissiónem omnium peccatórum, quæsumus, placátus accipias, eorumque nómina ascríbi júbeas in libro viventium. Per.

We therefore ask, o Lord, may Thou graciously accept this oblation, which we make unto Thee for these whom Thou hast vouchsafed to bring to a new birth from water and the Holy Spirit, granting them remission of all their sins: and may Thou command that their names be entered into the book of life.

The oldest actual sacramentaries contain prayers for the vigil of Pentecost to go with the readings of prophecies repeated from the Easter vigil, and even more explicitly baptismal prayers and prefaces for the Masses. This tradition continues uninterrupted into the Missal of St Pius V; it was, inexplicably, mostly abolished by the Holy Week reform of 1955. (This is one of the many aspects of this reform which thoroughly belies its claim to be any kind of “restoration.”) I say “mostly” because although the parts of the ritual borrowed from the Easter vigil are suppressed, the Hanc igitur continues to be said, nonsensically; the post-Conciliar rite removed even this.

The interior of the Lateran Baptistery

The Octave

In his first sermon “on the fast of Pentecost”, Pope Leo says that it was observed “after the days of holy rejoicing, which we have passed unto the honor of the Lord who rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven, and after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (chapter 3) And likewise, in the third sermon, “the current season invites us to recur to the remedies of fasting, after passing fifty days from the Lord’s resurrection to the coming of the Holy Spirit…” (chapter 3) Nothing in any of the sermons indicates that this fast was regarded as part of the feast. Scholars therefore agree that there was no octave of Pentecost in his time, an example of a fairly solid argument from silence, even though it was clearly not Leo’s purpose to give any kind of systematic explanation of the liturgical year.

It is also true that roughly a century later, there is no mention of the octave in the “sacramentary” named after him, but here, the argument from silence is perhaps rather less solid. This manuscript, of which there survives only one copy (very possibly the only one ever made), was not actually a sacramentary at all, which is to say, a book which contains the priest’s parts of the Mass, the Canon, and the variable prayers and prefaces of individual Masses.

Before the creation of such books, the variable prayers and prefaces of the Mass were written down in booklets called “libelli Missarum”, which might well vary from one church to another even within the same city. The manuscript in question is a privately made and highly irregular collection of these libelli, generally dated on internal evidence to the mid-6th century. The collection was certainly made in Rome itself, since it contains numerous specific references to the city. Its traditional name “Leonine”, in reference to Pope St Leo I, is no more than a fancy of its discoverer, Fr Giuseppe Bianchini (1704-64), a canon of Verona who found it in the library of the cathedral chapter.

The capitular library of Verona Cathedral. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Marco Almbauer, CC BY-SA 4.0) 

This is what accounts for its rather haphazard arrangement, the irregularity of its contents (five Masses of St John the Baptist, but twenty-eight for Ss Peter and Paul), its many mistakes, several incomplete Masses, and the inclusion of the worst preface ever written. (One of its strangest mistakes is the placement of nine Masses of St Stephen the First Martyr on August 2nd, the feast of Pope St Stephen I, even though the former was certainly celebrated on December 26th long before the collection was made.)

It is therefore too much to say that because the octave is not mentioned in it, it cannot have existed in any form when the collection was made. Pope Leo says very clearly that the Ember fasts were kept on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after Pentecost, but the “Leonine” manuscript has only two Masses for them, one placed before Pentecost, and the other after, so it is certainly not a definitive or wholly reliable witness.

The Mass of the octave of Pentecost in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD. It begins with the second rubric on the left hand side; the preface of the Holy Trinity is introduced by the large VD glyph towards the bottom. 

The oldest actual sacramentary, the Old Gelasian, dated ca. 700, does not have special Masses for the days within the octave of Pentecost. However, it does have, right after the Mass of Pentecost Sunday, six prayers for Vespers “within the octave of Pentecost”, followed by the Ember Day Masses, and then the Mass “on Sunday of the octave of Pentecost.” The preface of this last is that which we say on the feast of the Holy Trinity, the following Sundays until Christmas, and between Epiphany and Lent. This also reflects the work of St Leo, who expounds the doctrine of the Trinity at length in his Pentecost sermons; all of the preface’s keywords (Trinitas, substantia, essentia etc.) appear in these sermons quite frequently.

Likewise, readings for the days within the octave appear in the earliest lectionaries, and the chants in the oldest antiphonaries. The Thursday within the octave of Pentecost was originally an “aliturgical” day like the Thursdays in Lent, on which no Mass was said. By the time this custom was changed in the early 8th century, the corpus of Mass chants was regarded as a closed canon, which is why the Thursdays of Lent borrow almost all their chants from other Masses, and that of Pentecost simply repeats the Mass of Sunday.

The post-Conciliar rite purported to restore the earliest custom of the Church by abolishing the octave, and making one undifferentiated fifty-day long feast of the whole period between Easter and Pentecost. (This in itself is, unsurprisingly, a misrepresentation of the custom of the early Church.) This claim is belied by the fact that it also abolished the Ember days, which are consistently attested in the same ancient sources that attest to the “fifty days of Easter.”