The Vigil of Pentecost

Tomorrow is Pentecost, the great solemnity celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. The Church has long celebrated this event in three ways: the solemnity of the day itself, the octave of the day, and the vigil. With the liturgical reforms of the 1960s and 1970s, all but the day itself was suppressed, a sad testament to liturgical minimalism.

However, in the 2002 Missale Romanum, promulgated in English in 2011, the great Vigil of Pentecost has been restored!

It’s kind of like a miniature version of the Easter Vigil, with four Old Testament readings taken from salvation history, speaking of the yearning of the coming of God to His people. This is no accident.

This vigil, like the Easter Vigil, was traditionally one of the days when the catechumens were baptized. Even when that custom fell out of favour, it was a day when the newly baptized neophytes would wear their white baptismal garments for the last time. Hence, an alternative name for Pentecost in English was Whitsunday (i.e. “White Sunday”).

Several years ago now, at my parish of Holy Rosary, we celebrated this extended Vigil. Here’s hoping this ancient tradition can be restored again in our parish in the future!

Meanwhile, I just came back in the house from celebrating I Vespers of Pentecost, and I was struck by the timleiness in my own life of the Magnificat antiphon:

I will not leave you orphans, alleluia;
I go away and am coming to you, alleluia;
and your heart shall rejoice, alleluia.

Now, obviously this refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit, so that the Church would not be left as orphans after Christ’s Ascension, but somehow it struck a chord with me. For the first time in years, my parish will have a pastor, and we will be orphans no longer.

Deo gratias!