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Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord:
The last phase of the 50-day season of Easter is marked
by the feasts of the Ascension of the Lord and of Pentecost Sunday. Not
many years ago the church celebrated the Ascension on the Thursday which
fell 40 days after Easter Sunday, thereby taking literally Luke’s
account of events in Acts chapter one. In Illinois and elsewhere the
feast has been moved to the seventh Sunday of Easter.
Originally the Lord’s ascension and the coming of the
Holy Spirit were celebrated together on the solemnity of Pentecost. It
was not until the end of the fourth century that the Ascension became a
separate feast from Pentecost. Leo the Great, preaching about the
importance of this feast, gives an insight into its meaning which
remains relevant today:
‘The Lord’s resurrection filled us with joy on Easter
Day; so, too, his ascension into heaven is the cause of our gladness
now, as we commemorate and solemnize the day on which our lowly nature
was raised up in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the
ranks of angels, beyond the height of all the heavenly powers, to the
throne of God the Father… Though everything that seemed to move us to
due reverence is removed from our sight, our faith remains constant,
our hope firm, and our charity warm’.
(Office of Readings, Easter Week 6, Friday).
As always with prefaces, those for the Ascension and
Pentecost reflect the focus of the celebration. The Preface of
Pentecost gives clues in the liturgy for understanding the purpose of
the feast:
‘Today you sent the Holy Spirit on those marked out
to be your children by sharing the life of your only Son, and so you
brought the paschal mystery to its completion. Today we celebrate the
great beginning of your Church when the Holy Spirit made known to all
peoples the one true God, and created from the many languages of man,
one voice to profess one faith’.
Pentecost Sunday is one of the two celebrations during
the year that has an obligatory sequence (Easter is the other). The
sequence (from the Latin sequor, ‘to follow’) is a long hymn
text which appears after the second reading and before the Gospel
acclamation. Originally these musical components extended the final
‘a’ of the Alleluia. They served to embellish and prolong the Gospel
procession on high feast days.
Sequences now occur rarely in the liturgy. Their
purpose is to provide a sharper focus for important celebrations by
uniting those present in reflection on the feast or mystery being
celebrated. It is a challenge to liturgy planners to ensure that the
sequence is a joyful expression of the festival rather than a long,
“dead” time.
Perhaps the whole assembly might be invited to join in
one of the many sung settings of Veni, Sancte Spiritus (‘Come,
Holy Spirit’) at Masses on Pentecost Sunday. Sequences also provide
suitable background for some form of liturgical movement, so another
ritual possibility is to sing or recite the sequence during the Gospel
procession as the book is carried through the assembly in solemn fashion
accompanied by candles and incense, culminating in the joyful
acclamation: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluia!”
Happy Easter! Alleluia! Alleluia! Let’s
give our minds and hearts to the Lord!
Father Joe
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