Dies Octavæ I. classis
Within the sacred Octave of Pentecost, Holy Mother Church gathers her children at the Ember Wednesday to contemplate the mystery of the Spirit’s descent and the Bread that came down from heaven. The Quattuor Tempora, those four seasons of fasting and prayer instituted by the venerable tradition of the Roman Church, here take on a particular splendour: for at Pentecost they sanctify the harvest of souls reaped by the Apostles’ preaching, even as the natural harvest is sanctified at other seasons. The lections of this Feria — drawn from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel according to St. John — set before the faithful a triple meditation upon prophecy fulfilled, signs wrought, and the living Bread offered for the life of the world.
I. The Tongues of Fire and the Voice of Joel (Acts 2:14-21)
The first lesson sets us upon the morning of Pentecost itself, when Petrus cum undecim — Peter, standing with the Eleven — lifts up his voice and proclaims that what the men of Jerusalem behold is none other than the fulfillment of the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass, in the last days, (saith the Lord,) I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:17, Douay-Rheims).
Here the Church beholds her birth in public testimony. The Apostle who had thrice denied his Master now stands forth as the herald of the Spirit, and the same mouth that had faltered before a servant girl now thunders before the assembled nations. St. John Chrysostom, in his fourth homily upon the Acts, marvels at this transformation: the timid have become lions, and the unlearned have become teachers of the wise. “Mark the boldness,” he writes, “of the man, and how, from being so timorous, he is become more daring than a lion.” This is the proper signature of the Holy Ghost — not the timidity of nature, but the fortitudo of grace.
The prophecy of Joel, cited by Peter, locates the Church in novissimis diebus — in the last days. These “last days” are not merely the days of the world’s ending, but the entire dispensation of grace inaugurated by the coming of Christ and consummated by the descent of the Paraclete. Venerable Bede, in his Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, observes that the outpouring of the Spirit super omnem carnem — upon all flesh — signifies the universality of the Gospel, no longer confined to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh but extended to every nation under heaven. The wall of partition is broken; the prophecy of the universal vocation begins its long unfolding in history.
The signs that accompany this outpouring — prodigia in cælo sursum, et signa in terra deorsum — are dreadful and consoling at once. St. Augustine, treating of this passage in his Sermones, reminds us that the Spirit comes not only as gentle dew but also as devouring fire, for He must purge what He sanctifies. The blood and fire and vapour of smoke prefigure the trials by which the Church is purified, even as the gift of tongues prefigures her catholic mission.
And the lesson concludes with that promise which is the foundation of every Christian’s hope: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). St. Cyril of Alexandria observes that this calling upon the Name is no mere utterance of the lips, but the confession of faith joined to charity and obedience — that invocatio which St. Paul will later say is impossible nisi in Spiritu Sancto (1 Cor. 12:3).
II. The Shadow That Heals (Acts 5:12-16)
The second lection bears us forward into the early days of the Apostolic Church, when per manus autem Apostolorum fiebant signa et prodigia multa in plebe — many signs and wonders were wrought among the people by the hands of the Apostles. The faithful gathered with one accord in Solomon’s porch, and so great was the virtus proceeding from St. Peter that the sick were laid in the streets that even his shadow, umbra illius, might fall upon them as he passed.
What is this shadow, and whence its healing power? St. Augustine, in his commentary upon the Psalms, teaches that the shadow of Peter signifies the protection of the Church herself, cast by him whom Christ established as the rock. The shadow is not the substance, yet it partakes of the substance and bears its likeness; so too the sacraments and the ministry of the Church are not Christ Himself in His glorified humanity, yet they are the extensions of His healing presence, umbræ futurorum (Col. 2:17), which contain the very reality they signify.
The Venerable Bede draws out a further mystery: that the shadow which heals is the figure of the Incarnation itself, for the Most High overshadowed the Blessed Virgin (Luke 1:35), and from that overshadowing came forth the Healer of all flesh. The Apostles, conformed to their Master, now extend that overshadowing through the world. Quod enim Christus per se faciebat dum in terris esset, hoc per ministros suos operatur — what Christ did through Himself when He was upon earth, He now works through His ministers, as St. John Chrysostom expresses it.
Note well the spiritual fruit: magis autem augebatur credentium in Domino multitudo virorum ac mulierum — the multitude of men and women believing in the Lord was the more increased. The signs do not terminate in themselves; they are ordered to faith, and faith to salvation. St. Gregory the Great, in the Homiliæ in Evangelia, warns that miracles without conversion are but spectacles, and that the true marvel of the Apostolic age is not so much that bodies were healed as that souls were turned from idols to the living God.
The crowds came de finitimis civitatibus Jerusalem — from the neighbouring cities — bearing their sick and those vexed by unclean spirits, et curabantur omnes. All were cured. The Catholic Church, which is the continuation of this Apostolic body, holds out the same medicine to the same maladies: the sacraments for the wounds of sin, the doctrine for the darkness of error, and the communion of saints for the loneliness of the soul.
III. The Bread Which Came Down From Heaven (John 6:44-52)
The Holy Gospel ascends from the signs wrought in the streets of Jerusalem to the Sign of signs: the Bread of Life discourse pronounced by Our Lord in the synagogue of Capharnaum. “No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him,” says the Saviour, “and I will raise him up in the last day” (John 6:44).
The placement of this Gospel within the Octave of Pentecost is no accident, for it is the Holy Ghost who is the inward Drawing of the Father. St. Augustine, in his tenth Tractate upon the Gospel of John (Tract. XXVI in Joannem), gives the celebrated exposition: trahit sua quemque voluptas — each is drawn by his own delight. The Father draws by revealing the sweetness of the Son to the soul, and this revelation is the secret work of the Spirit, who pours charity into our hearts (Rom. 5:5). Thus prevenient grace is no violence to the will, but the kindling of a holy desire.
Our Lord proceeds: “It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught of God” (John 6:45). Here is the interior magisterium of the Paraclete, which St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his commentary upon St. John, identifies as the proper fruit of Pentecost. The exterior preaching of the Apostles, heard at Acts 2, is met by the interior teaching of the Spirit in the hearer’s soul, and the two together effect the conversion of the elect. Doctrina sine unctione nihil est — doctrine without unction is nothing, as the spiritual writers have ever taught.
Then comes the great declaration: “I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world” (John 6:48-52).
The Fathers are unanimous that this is no figure of speech, no mere metaphor, but the very institution of the Holy Eucharist veiled in promise. St. John Chrysostom, in his forty-sixth homily upon St. John, presses the literal sense with characteristic vigour: “Let us therefore in everything believe God, and gainsay Him in nothing, though what is said seem contrary to our thoughts and senses; let His Word overcome both.” The Council of Trent, in the thirteenth session, would later define this dogma against all who would reduce the Eucharist to a sign void of substance: vere, realiter, et substantialiter — truly, really, and substantially is Christ contained under the species of bread and wine.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiæ (III, q. 75), demonstrates the fittingness of this mystery: that the Word made flesh should give Himself as food, that the Bridegroom should be the nourishment of the Bride, that the Physician should be the Medicine. O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur — O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
The murmuring of the Jews — Quomodo potest hic nobis carnem suam dare ad manducandum? — “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” — echoes through every age in which men measure the mysteries of God by the canons of their own reason. The Catholic answers with St. Augustine: Crede, et manducasti — believe, and thou hast eaten. Yet the Catholic faith holds also that beyond the spiritual eating of faith there is the sacramental eating of the Body itself, given on the night before He suffered and renewed upon every altar where a validly ordained priest pronounces the words of consecration.
IV. The Threefold Harvest of Pentecost
Behold then the threefold harvest set before us at this Ember Wednesday: the harvest of preaching, by which the Spirit-filled Apostles draw the nations; the harvest of signs, by which the Apostolic Church confirms the Word with wonders; and the harvest of the altar, by which the living Bread feeds the multitude unto life eternal. All three are works of the one Holy Ghost, who is the soul of the Mystical Body and the principle of every supernatural fruit.
The Quattuor Tempora call us to fasting, that the body may be subjected to the spirit; to prayer, that the spirit may be opened to God; and to almsgiving, that charity may overflow toward our neighbour. These three exercises, joined to a worthy reception of the Most Holy Eucharist, are the path by which the soul cooperates with the gift of Pentecost and bears the fruit which remains unto life everlasting.
Oremus
Let us conclude with the Collect of this Feria, which gathers all into a single petition:
Mentes nostras, quæsumus, Domine, Paraclitus, qui a te procedit, illuminet: et inducat in omnem, sicut tuus promisit Filius, veritatem. Per eundem Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate eiusdem Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
“May the Paraclete who proceedeth from Thee, we beseech Thee, O Lord, enlighten our minds, and lead us, as Thy Son hath promised, into all truth. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the same Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.”
May the Holy Ghost, who came down in tongues of fire upon the Apostles, descend likewise upon our minds in the reading of His Word, upon our streets in the signs of His mercy, and upon our altars in the mystery of the Bread of Life — that calling upon the Name of the Lord, we may be saved, and raised up at the last day.
Veni, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.