Easter, Ascension & Pentecost – Page 9

Low Sunday or Quasimodo Sunday or Dominica in albis depositis

The Second Sunday of Easter has many names, as noted
in the title of this post. In some places the theme of mercy is recognized drawing us into the Lord’s bountiful mercy: John Paul II recommended the title of Divine Mercy Sunday for this day, too. The most accurate title, however, for today, is “Quasimodo
Sunday” taken from the first two words of the entrance Antiphon at Mass
that speak especially to those baptized at the Easter Vigil: Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite ut in eo
crescatis in salutem si gustastis quoniam dulcis Dominus. (As newborn babes,
alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Rejoice to God our helper. Sing aloud to the God of Jacob (1 Peter 2:2).)

This
second Sunday following Easter is the day on which the newly baptized
officially put away their white robes, it is therefore known liturgically as
“Dominica in albis depositis” or the “Sunday of putting away the
albs.”

Today we also hear John 20: 19-31 proclaimed which focuses our
attention on the doubts of Saint Thomas at hearing the news of the risen
Christ.

In his book, The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Gueranger writes, “Our
risen Jesus gave an additional proof that he wished the Sunday to be,
henceforth, the privileged day. He reserved the second visit he intended to pay
to all his disciples for this the eighth day since his Resurrection. During the
previous days, he has left Thomas a prey to doubt; but to-day he shows himself
to this Apostle, as well as to the others, and obliges him, by irresistible
evidence, to lay aside his incredulity. Thus does our Saviour again honour the
Sunday. The Holy Ghost will come down from heaven upon this same day of the
week, making it the commencement of the Christian Church: Pentecost will
complete the glory of this favoured day.”

The newly baptized, the new lambs: Isti sunt Agni novelli

These are the
lambs, newly-baptized,

who proclaimed the
glad tidings: Alleluia! recently come to
the waters, and full of God’s
light and splendor. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Lady, Queen, whom
grace from heaven, Has preferred to
all on earth, Now renewed, the
world is brightened, By your holy
virgin-birth.

Oh, how lovely and
how wondrous, Is the cure that
saved us all: Jesus, in His love,
becomes now, Victim for His people’s
fall!

Now renewed through
holy washing, In the font of our
rebirth, Soon the chrism’s
oil and fragrance, Will give strength
to us on earth!

To each Christian
now is given, Christ’s own Flesh
as Bread of Life. Christ’s own Blood
becomes the sweetest, Source of joy in all our strife!

Easter week brings so many joys, graces and consolations. One such joy, grace and consolation that I’ve been thinking and praying about all week during Mass and praying the Divine Office, is the is new life in Christ that those received into the Church at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday. The gift of salvation given to us is has once again been given to other called not by human concern but by the Holy Spirit. The Neophytes –the newly-initiated Christians who were baptized and confirmed and communicated– live differently now that the doors of our God-given destiny has been received. Musically we can think of the chant text given above, “Isti sunt Agni novelli,” taken from the Cistercian collection Laudes Vespertine (Westmalle, Belgium, 1939) which gives a keen insight into this beautiful mystery of faith. May Christ shower His blessing on all of us!

Christ’s resurrection changes everything

After your descent into Hades, O Christ, and your
Resurrection from the dead, the disciples grieved over your departure. They returned to their occupations and attended to their nets and their boats; but
their fishing was in vain. You appeared to them since you are the Lord of all; you
commanded them to cast their nets on the right side. Immediately your word
became deed. They caught a great number of fish, and they found an unexpected
meal prepared for them on the shore; which they immediately ate. Now, make us
worthy to enjoy this meal with them in a spiritual manner, O Lord and Lover of
us all!

The poetic text above draws our attention to the fact that for the believer, that is, the person who is aware of his or her humanity and spiritual need, Christ is the answer …

Christ’s glorified body heals us of disbelief

Looking at Luke 24:38ff Christ says, “Why are you troubled, and doubts arise in your heart? Look at my hands and my feet, touch and see.”

Commenting on appearance of Christ in His glorified body, Saint Augustine of Hippo in Sermon 246 tells us that Christ wanted to offer evidence of His resurrection from the dead as a reality! “Was He perhaps already ascended to the Father when He said: ‘Touch me and see’? He let His disciples touch Him, indeed, not only touch but feel, to provide a foundation for faith in the reality of His flesh, in reality of His body [ut fides fiat verae carnis veri corporis]. The well-foundedness of the reality had to be made obvious also through human touch [ut exhibibeatur etiam tactibus humanis solidatus veritatis]. Thus He let Himself be touched by the disciples.”

Later on Augustine asks about the women who were asked by the Lord not to touch Him because He had yet made the ascension, “What is this inconsistency? The men could not tocuh Him if not here on earth, while the women would be able to touch Him once He ascended to heaven? But what does touching mean if not believing? By faith we touch Christ. And it is better not to touch Him with faith than feel with the hand and not touch Him with faith.”

Augustine points us to the proof Christ offers: faith. “The scar of the wound on His flesh served to heal the wound of disbelief.” The Lord wanted to cure those who disbelieved.

Christ is Risen!

Love is stronger the life!

Happy Easter

The Special work of the Holy Spirit

Each of the three Divine Persons is holy, and each is a
spirit, and we give the name “Holy Spirit” to the Third Person precisely
because He is all that the Father and the Son have

common -their divinity,
their charity, their blessedness, their delight in each other, their holiness
and their spiritual nature. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the
Son, proceeding from both, and He is the unity and charity of them both. The
Holy Spirit is so completely, so truly, God’s gift that unless someone has the
Holy Spirit, he has none of God’s gift, and whoever has any of them, has them
only in the Holy Spirit. Many things are given to us through the Holy Spirit,
but they are valueless if the chief gift of charity is lacking. And the reason
why the Holy Spirit is called “Gift of God” is because “the charity of God is
poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.”

Nothing is more excellent than this gift, which ultimately
differentiates between the children of the kingdom and the children of
darkness. Even if all the other gifts are lacking, charity will take us to the
kingdom of God. Although faith can exist without charity, only the faith that
works through love can have any value. The Holy Spirit is the charity of the
Father and the Son, by means of which they love each other. He is the unity in
virtue of which they are one. When he is given to us, he enkindles in our
hearts the love of God and of one another. This same love, living in our
hearts, is the love by which God is love.

This is “the Spirit of the Lord which fills the whole world”
with his all-powerful goodness, appointing a perfect harmony among all
creatures, and filling them all with the vast riches of his grace, according to
the capacity of each. It is he who teaches us to pray as we ought, making us
cleave to God, rendering us pleasing to God and not unworthy to have our
prayers answered. He enlightens our minds and forms love in our hearts. All
this is the work of the Holy Spirit. We may even call it his own special work,
if we remember that he is sufficient for this task only because he can never be
separated from the Father and the Son.

William of Saint Thierry

Pantheon Rose

Every year on the Solemnity of Pentecost there’s a shower of red roses during the singing of the Veni Sanctae Spiritus at the Pantheon, the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Martrys.

See the video clip of this famous Roman tradition.

Come, Holy Ghost

Come, Holy Ghost, send down those beams,

which sweetly flow in silent streams

from Thy bright throne above.

O come, Thou Father of the poor;

O come, Thou source of all our store,

come, fill our hearts with love.

O Thou, of comforters the best,

O Thou, the soul’s delightful guest,

the pilgrim’s sweet relief.

Rest art Thou in our toil, most sweet

refreshment in the noonday heat;

and solace in our grief.

O blessed Light of life Thou art;

fill with Thy light the inmost heart

of those who hope in Thee.

Without Thy Godhead nothing can,

have any price or worth in man,

nothing can harmless be.

Lord, wash our sinful stains away,

refresh from heaven our barren clay,

our wounds and bruises heal.

To Thy sweet yoke our stiff necks bow,

warm with Thy fire our hearts of snow,

our wandering feet recall.

Grant to Thy faithful, dearest Lord,

whose only hope is Thy sure word,

the sevenfold gifts of grace.

Grant us in life Thy grace that we,

in peace may die and ever be,

in joy before Thy face. Amen. Alleluia.

This hymn, Veni, Sancte Spiritus, also known as the Golden
Sequence, is the poetic text (a sequence) for the Mass for Pentecost. It is
sung after the Epistle and before the Alleluia antiphon. It is regarded as one
of the greatest masterpieces of sacred Latin poetry. The hymn has been
attributed to three different authors, King Robert II-the Pious of France
(970-1031), Pope Innocent III (1161-1216), and Stephen Langton (d. 1228),
Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Stephen is most likely the author. The
inclusion of this hymn in the sacred Liturgy is noted in the mid-12th century
or so and sung from Pentecost through the Octave. When the renewal of the
Liturgy happened following the Second Vatican Council the Octave of Pentecost
was suspended and the sequence limited to Pentecost Sunday.

The mind of Christ is not myopic: the event of Pentecost broadens us

The Holy Spirit makes the Christian experience truly Catholic and universal, open to all human experience. To be Catholic is to be universal and open to the world. Not only to Canada, North America Europe or Asia, or a certain familiar part of the world or segment of society, but it must be open to all, to every single person. The mind of Christ is not intended to be a selective mentality for a few but the perspective from which the whole world will be renewed and redeemed. An insight like this, the universal scope of salvation did not however come easily and without much pain and confusion.

In fact, the whole of the New Testament can be understood precisely as the emergence of the Catholic, the universal, in Christian life. Christianity, had it not moved from where it was particular and small would have just been a small modification of the Jewish experience, a subset of Jewish piety that was still focused in and around Jerusalem and the restoration of a literal kingdom of Israel. The first two generations of Christians discovered that Christianity could not be just that. Because they had received the Holy Spirit, which is the universal principle, the Holy Spirit opened peoples’ eyes to the universal import of the Christian truth and through the encounter with non-Jews who received the Holy Spirit.

The artists of the Middle Ages often contrasted the Tower of Babel with the “Tower” of the Upper Room. Babel symbolizes the divisions of people caused by sin. Pentecost stands for a hope that such separations are not a tragic necessity. The babbling mob of Babel compares poorly with the heartfelt unity of the Pentecost crowd. Babel was a mob. Pentecost was a community. A people without God lost the ability to communicate. A people suffused with the Spirit spoke heart to heart.

At Pentecost the full meaning of Jesus’ life and message is poured into our hearts by the Spirit alive in the community. The New Testament seems to say that – for a fleeting moment – the nations of the earth paused from their customary strife and experienced a community caused by God. The brief and shining hour of Pentecost remains to charm and encourage us to this day.

These paragraphs come from Basilian Father Thomas Rosica’s essay on the Pentecost scriptures published on Zenit.org for May 28, 2009. Father Rosica is the executive director of Salt and Light TV.

A video on Pentecost can be seen here.

Praying with the Mysteries of the Holy Spirit

That we are in the days prior to the great feast of Pentecost our prayer ought to be more intensely centered on the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. My friend Dom Mark calls to mind the seven mysteries of the Holy Spirit found in the Rosary dealing with the action of the Holy Spirit in salvation history, especially attentive to the fact that these mysteries personally, deeply touch our own lives. His blog entry is helpful —read for yourself.

What gifts ought we to pray for? What about a fuller appreciation of and living out of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Courage (fortitude), Knowledge, Piety (reverence), and Fear of the Lord (Awe of God).

Veni Sanctae Spiritus. Veni per Mariam.