As they did for the Jews, our feast days look both backward, to commemorate an important moment in salvation history, and forward, the fulfillment in Christ of what was foreshadowed. For the Jews, the Fiftieth Day Feast, Hebrew Shavuot or Greek Pentekosté, commemorated the descent of God’s Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, wreathed in fire, fifty days after the Exodus. Fifty days after Our Lord’s Resurrection (the perfect number 7×7 + 1 for the day itself in ancient reckoning), the tenth from His Ascension, the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and first disciples to breathe life into Christ’s Body, the Church.

In the Roman Rite’s Extraordinary Form, Pentecost retains its Octave along with the special Communicantes and Hanc igitur. The Ordinary Form sings a Collect rooted in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

Deus, qui sacramento festivitatis hodiernae universam Ecclesiam tuam in omni gente et natione sanctificas, in totam mundi latitudinem Spiritus Sancti dona defunde, et, quod inter ipsa evangelicae praedicationis exordia operata est divina dignatio, nunc quoque per credentium corda perfunde.

Cor is “heart” and corda “hearts”. Sacramentum translates Greek mysterion. Sacramentum and Latin mysterium are often interchangeable in liturgical texts. Defundo means “to pour down, pour out”. Perfundo, is “to pour over, moisten, bedew”, and “to imbue, inspire” as well as “to dye”.

Exordium is a technical term in ancient rhetoric, the beginning of a prepared speech whereby the orator lays out what he is going to do and induces the listeners to attend. From Pentecost onward Christ the Incarnate Word, although remote by His Ascension, is the present and perfect Orator delivering His saving message to the world through Holy Church. “He that heareth you, heareth me”, Christ told His Apostles with the Seventy (Luke 10:16). Much hangs on exordia.

Literal version:

O God, who by the sacramental mystery of today’s feast do sanctify Your universal Church in every people and nation, pour down upon the whole breadth of the earth the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and make that which divine favour wrought amidst the very beginnings of the preaching of the Good News to flow now also through believers’ hearts.

Obsolete ICEL (1973):

God our Father, let the Spirit you sent on your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe.

Current ICEL (2011):

O God, who by the mystery of today’s great feast sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation, pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the face of the earth and, with the divine grace that was at work when the Gospel was first proclaimed, fill now once more the hearts of believers.

Unity and continuity are keys to this Collect. The Holy Spirit pours spiritual life into the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit guarantees our unity and continuity across every border and century.

When the Holy Spirit poured over the Apostles, they poured out of the upper room and began to preach in public speeches to people from every nation.

Exordium has another meaning which breathes more meaning into this oration. Exordium means “the beginning, the warp of a web”. It invokes weaving and selvage, the cloth’s edge, tightly woven so that the web will not fray, fall apart.  On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, in the preaching of the Apostles, began to weave together the Church’s selvage, that strong stable exordia edges of the fabric, through the centuries and down to our own day. The Holy Spirit then imbues and infuses, tints and dyes the fabric of the Church as He flows through it.

In the Tower of Babel event, the bonds of man and God symbolically unraveled when languages were divided (Gen 11:5-8). Ever since, Pentecost’s “reweaving” guarantees that Holy Church’s warp and weft will hold true, even though here and there and now and then there may be rips and tatters.

Let our hearts and prayers be raised for unity. Sursum corda! In Pentecost Sunday Collect we pray that our corda may be imbued with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Let them be closely woven into, knit into Holy Church, and even over-sewn and tinted with her patterns, not ours. Let our hearts be bounded about by her saving selvage, dyed in the Spirit’s boundless love.

Let us also pray for the agents of the Enemy of the soul, witting and duped alike, who hang onto Holy Church’s edges but in such a way that they tear at the Church’s fabric. They may be on the fringe, but they endanger all our threads, the precious souls of our brothers and sisters. Through the pernicious work of the unraveling Enemy, souls can be lost in the fray.

Go to Confession if you are not in the state of grace. Call upon the Sacrament of Confirmation which you have received, to strengthen you in your Catholic identity. By doing so, you will strengthen us all.

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