Fr. Z's Blog

Pentecost Wednesday: Ember Day

Another Octave ramble which might have a couple of surprises.

Back in the day, 5th c or so, Pentecost was enriched with an Octave, thus extending the festal character of the great feast. For a while they were bumped. In the 11th c. St. Pope Gregory VII, Hildebrand, reinstated them while keeping the festive tone of the Octave.

If the Octave of Pentecost can be abolished for the Novus Ordo calendar, it can be reinstated, just as Benedict XVI John Paul II reinstated “Prayers over the people” during Lent.

If the Ember Days can be de facto suppressed through lack of interest and ignorance, they can be reinstated.

Oh Lord, please send us another Hildebrand?

Consider what his approach to “Eucharistic consistency” (or is it “Eucharistic coherence”…)  might be.  Consider what he would do about prelates who waffle on morals, who do nothing about schlock worship, etc.

Today’s Roman Station is St. Mary Major, the place traditionally for scrutinies of candidates for ordination.     If I had my way, we would call some back for scrutinies.  In my day in Rome, before ordination to the diaconate and to the priesthood we had pretty thorough “scrutinies”.  We went around a big room from table to where there was a priest scrutineer who would interrogate us about the material of which he was an expert.  These guys were usually professors from the Pontifical Universities.

Because this is an Ember Day, we have, first, two readings from Acts 2 and Acts 5, with a “Flectamus genua” for good measure, and then a Gospel pericope from the Bread of Life discourse in John 6.

Acts 2 relates the descent of the Holy Spirit and then Peter’s preaching with the conversion of many. Peter talks about the wonders people will see.

Acts 5 opens with the sad case of Ananias and Sapphira. Later the Apostles are imprisoned, but angels let them out. When the big shots started to freak out, Gamaliel counseled patience to see if what the Apostles were doing was from God. In this reading, the Apostles work many signs, many cures. Even Peter’s shadow cured. Many believed.

Two points spring to mind on this beautiful Roman morning, my last full day in Rome.

First, Gamaliel counseled patience.  If what the Apostles were doing was from God, it would endure and produce good things.  If it was not, that would become clear. Would that today our Whatevers High Atop The Thing would have even a hair’s breadth of such wise patience when it comes to something that really doesn’t need to prove itself because it already had a track record of centuries.

The Vetus Ordo has a track record and the Novus Ordo does not.  Rather, the NO’s incipient track record isn’t that impressive.

On the contrary. Ratzinger said, way back in the day, and I’ve been saying picking up on him that the two Rites (that’s what they are, let’s not kid ourselves) should be freely offered in the best way, most faithful way possible, side by side.  People will show us the way forward.  But progressivists, you see, the catholic Left, liberals (from the Latin “free”, meaning for a liberal you are only “free” to agree with liberals), are afraid of freedom when it comes to that which stands as a bulwark against erosion of doctrine and – wait for it – morals.  There is nothing to fear from the Vetus Ordo and the people who want it, unless, that is, you fear large, happy, devout families with many children who participate in the life of the Church, which they love.

Second, Peter’s shadow healed.  John was the voice and Christ the Word.  “He who hears you hears me”.  “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven…”.  “This is my Body…”.    The farther we get from the light source, the weaker and fuzzier the shadow.  TRADITION keeps us close to the light source.   Hence, Tradidi quod et accepi.

The Mass texts today shift to different themes. Pentecost and Monday and Tuesday (before Ember Days) all contained protection from harm by the enemy.

Something about the Descent of the Spirit has always twitched at my mind. Acts 2:1 says “they were all together in one place”. But there were quite a few believers at the time, at least 120. All in one place? The upper room wasn’t big enough. BUT… this is the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot!

They were not in the Upper Room.  They were in the TEMPLE.

Males were to go to the Temple for the Shavuot – Pentecost – spring harvest festival celebration involving the wave offerings in the Temple of the harvest fruits, loaves baked from the first sheaves.  The Temple was certainly “big enough” for all the disciples.  And that is where they were!   Acts 2:2 says a wind came (the Holy Spirit) and “filled the house”, Greek oikos. Oikos can be house, of course, but it can also mean any building, including the Temple, the house of God (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46; John 2:16f, (Isaiah 56:5, 7); cf. Luke 11:51; Acts 7:47, 49).  Jesus refers to His Body as a Temple using “house”.

Remember what we read at the end of Luke 24:50-53 and the account of the Ascension of the Lord?

Then [Jesus] led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.

They were continually in the Temple. Why? Among other reasons, Shavuot. When Acts says they were in the “house”, they were in the Temple.  Jewish festivals looked back to historical events and they looked forward to something yet to be fulfilled.  Shavuot looked back to the descent of God on the mountain in the fiery presence cloud, shekinah, when God gave the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.  Shavuot looked forward to the return of the fiery “presence cloud” to the Temple which had departed with the destruction of the first Temple.  That’s Pentecost: Shavuot fulfilled.  The first fruits this time being the 3000 baptized.

What happens after the mighty wind and tongues of fire? A huge crowd hears Peter’s sermon. Where was that? In the Temple. When did it take place? At 9:00 in the morning. Remember the line about drunkenness?

This was the 3rd hour of the morning and the time of the tamid, the sacrifice of the first of the two daily lambs.

To baptize all those people they would have needed a place with a lot of water. There was such a place nearby, pools for ritual cleansing before going to the Temple.

I am reminded of Ezekiel 6:26:

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

A new SPIRIT I will put within you. I will take away this TEMPLE of STONE and give you a TEMPLE of FLESH.

This took place in the Temple which lost the glory cloud of fire of the presence of God. The presence of God as fire returns and settles not in the Holy Holies where the Ark was, but rather on the New Ark, Mary and on the Apostles and, through baptism in the hearts of the new believers, new Temples of the Holy Spirit.

In the Introit of today’s Mass we pray: “O God, when You went forth at the head of Your people, making a passage for them, dwelling in their midst…” A reference to the fire cloud that led the people. In the Collect we pray something that echoes that image of the guiding freedom-bringing fire: “May the Paraclete Who proceeds from You, enlighten our minds, we beseech You, O Lord, and guide us to all truth, as Your Son has promised.”

In the Second Collect, remember it is an Ember Day with two first readings, we get this. See if it doesn’t bind together my thoughts, above:

Grant, we beseech You, almighty and most merciful God, that the Holy Spirit may come to dwell in us, graciously making us a temple of His glory.

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.