Pentecost Tuesday: Wherein Fr. Z rants

Tuesday in the Octave of Pentecost.   Another little ramble.

The Octave has Roman Stations. As the last two days honored St. Peter at churches bearing his name, one would expect now that St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles should be acknowledged with a trip to St. Paul’s outside the walls. However, because it usually quite hot in the sun at this time of year – the Station was fixed at the important St. Anastasia, a church of the imperial court in the Greek and Byzantine section of the City near the markets and below the Palatine Hill.

The Octave was developed in Rome when there was strong Greek, Byzantine presence. So, it makes a measure of sense that the Introit would be from a Greek apocryphal book 4 Esdras.

In Acts 8 we read that Saul was still ravaging the Church, even going house to house and dragging people off to prison. Deacon Philip, in Samaria, was preaching and exorcizing and healing: remember that curing illness went hand in hand with exorcism. Philip baptized, but it was necessary for Apostles, Peter and John, to come to confer the Holy Spirit.

This is when a certain Simon tried to buy the power to confer the Holy Spirit, thus giving rise to the term “simony” for the selling and buying of spiritual goods.

Then in Acts 8 Deacon Philip gets a directive from an angel to go find the Ethiopian Eunuch, thus giving rise to the great image found in the traditional blessing of vehicles. Thereafter, Philip gets whipped away by the angel to Azotus, bringing chapter 8 to a close.

Yesterday Mass ended with a prayer for protection against the fury of enemies. The chapter of Acts we hear from today doesn’t begin with the first verses, but people knew their Scripture well. They knew what was going on in Acts 8 and that Saul was ravaging the Church.

Today the Church is being ravaged from without and from within.  Bloody ways from without, moral damage and secular-minded cruelty from within.  Both stem, probably, from cowardice, to a certain extent, because the oppression of what is good and true, what is stable and traditional, numbs the conscience and makes it easier for the pursuit of other immoral things.

The worst manifestation of the fury of enemies is the active erosion by priests and bishops of the church in the belief and practice of sound Christian morals on the part of their flocks. It is one thing to slay the body. It is another to endanger the soul.

Good shepherds?

Curiously, there is a good shepherd parable in the Gospel. In the traditional lectionary for Mass, there are various “Shepherd Masses”, as it were, and they pop up around the beginning of new seasons, for example, Monday after the 1st Sunday of Lent, Second Sunday after Easter, third Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel today is from John 10.

Our Lord says today, ““Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber;…”

I can’t help but think that those who put together the ancient Lectionary (0f the Vetus Ordo Mass) knew the context of Acts 8 and Simon and his “simony”. The Gospel concludes with the ominous: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Again, the emphases on an enemy at this happy time of the Octave.

The Collect today:

Adsit nobis, quaesumus, Dómine, virtus Spíritus Sancti: quæ et corda nostra cleménter expúrget, et ab ómnibus tueátur advérsis.

Let the power of the Holy Spirit be present within us, O Lord: that It may graciously cleanse our hearts and guard us from all adversaries.

Guard us.

That’s what a good shepherd does. A good shepherd protects the sheepfold, gives them good water, good pasturing for nourishment.

Before Christ ascended He said He would send not just an advocate, a parakletos, but another parakletos.

A parakletos is someone who stands by you, protects you under fire, counsels and guides, in fact shepherds you through perils.

Christ is the 1st parakletos and the Holy Spirit is 2nd, showing how the work of the Trinity is present in each of the Persons, though for our understanding it is “teased out”.

Pray for an abundant outpouring of the parakletos on your priests and bishops, perhaps even to covert the hearts and illumine their minds so that they leave their enervating appearance of action in the Church and move to concrete work consonant with the Tradition handed down to us by true men of action in our forebears.

Pray for a softening of the rigidity of hatred for the ways of our forefathers especially in liturgical practice.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Wherein Fr. Z Rants and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Comments

  1. Cornelius says:

    I like your rants, Fr. Z. You’re always spot on. Rant on.

    Although . . . rant is defined as “speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way”, your “rants” are always well reasoned, pointing out the manifest evils around us. Here are some options instead of rant:

    Wherein Fr Z fires a broadside . . .
    Wherein Fr Z issues a diatribe . . .
    Wherein Fr Z upbraids . . .
    Wherein Fr Z hurls a philippic . . .
    Wherein Fr Z promulgates an obloquy . . .
    Wherein Fr Z waxes vituperative. . .
    Wherein Fr Z launches a reproof . . .
    Wherein Fr Z vigorously admonishes . . .

    Just some ideas . . . .

  2. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    There is a background to that scene in the Acts, and I’m sure the lectionary’s authors had a legacy of his living memory in mind. Eusebius:

    “But faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ having now been diffused among all men, the enemy of man’s salvation contrived a plan for seizing the imperial city for himself. He conducted there the above-mentioned Simon, aided him in his deceitful arts, led many of the inhabitants of Rome astray, and thus brought them into his own power.”

    He quotes St. Justin Martyr:

    “And after the ascension of the Lord into heaven the demons put forward certain men who said they were gods, and who were not only allowed by you to go unpersecuted, but were even deemed worthy of honors. One of them was Simon, a Samaritan of the village of Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Cæsar performed in your imperial city some mighty acts of magic by the art of demons operating in him, and was considered a god, and as a god was honored by you with a statue, which was erected in the river Tiber, between the two bridges, and bore this inscription in the Latin tongue, Simoni Deo Sancto, that is, To Simon the Holy God.

    And nearly all the Samaritans and a few even of other nations confess and worship him as the first God. And there went around with him at that time a certain Helena who had formerly been a prostitute in Tyre of Phœnicia; and her they call the first idea that proceeded from him.”

    Apparently, his sect was renowned for how lascivious and vile they were behind closed doors. Eusebius continues:

    “But this did not last long. For immediately, during the reign of Claudius, the all-good and gracious Providence, which watches over all things, led Peter, that strongest and greatest of the apostles, and the one who on account of his virtue was the speaker for all the others, to Rome against this great corrupter of life. Clad in divine armor like a noble commander of God, He carried the costly merchandise of the light of the understanding from the East to those who dwelt in the West, proclaiming the light itself, and the word which brings salvation to souls, and preaching the kingdom of heaven.”

  3. hilltop says:

    Having read this post, I logged in to thank you for all of it and to make Cornelius’ comment above.
    Well done Father, and well done Cornelius!

  4. Cornelius, you forgot one:

    Wherein Fr. Z accompanies…

  5. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    Further reading has proved: 1) There is an erratum in my above comment, the narrative of Simon’s blinding in the Acts is the background of the above, and he heads to Rome thereafter; 2) there appears to be a tradition, hinted at in various early apologists, and narrated in the pseudepigraphical literature, that St. Peter stayed “hot on the trail” of Simon Magus, preaching against his gnostic errors and converting his converts.

    This actually helps illuminate the references in the 2nd Petrine epistle to gnosticism. Not quite as obvious as in the Epistles of St. John, from his own work chasing down the errors of Cerinthus, but they’re certainly there to be found. These guys fleeced their disciples, lived sumptuously on their money, and taught them that they could fufill all their base desires because they “couldn’t help themselves” and it was just “the nature of matter”. Sounds kind of familiar, really.

Comments are closed.