Aelfric on Pentecost

The Holy Ghost appeared over the apostles in semblance of fire, and over Christ, at his baptism, in likeness of a dove. Why over Christ in semblance of a dove? Why over the followers of Christ in likeness of fire? In books it is read concerning that kind of birds that its nature is very meek, and innocent, and peaceful. The Saviour is the Judge of all mankind, but he came not to judge mankind, as he himself said, but to save. If he then would have judged mankind, when he first came on earth, who would have been saved? But he would not by his advent condemn the sinful, but would gather them to his kingdom. He would first with gentleness direct us, that he might afterwards preserve us at his judgement. Therefore was the Holy Ghost seen in likeness of a dove above Christ, because he was living in this world in meekness, and innocence, and peacefulness. He cried not out, nor was he inclined to bitterness, nor did he stir up strife, but endured man’s wickedness through his meekness. But he who at his first advent mitigated, for the conversion of the sinful, will deem stern doom to the reckless at his second advent.

The Holy Ghost was seen as fiery tongues above the apostles; for he effected that they were burning in God’s will, and preaching of God’s kingdom. They had fiery tongues when with love they preached the greatness of God, that the hearts of the heathen men, which were cold through infidelity and fleshly desires, might be kindled to the heavenly commands. If the Holy Ghost teach not a man’s mind within, in vain will be the words of the preacher proclaimed without. It is the nature of fire to consume whatsoever is near to it: so shall the teacher do, who is inspired by the Holy Ghost, first extinguish every sin in himself, and afterwards in those under his care.

In likeness of a dove and in semblance of fire was the Spirit of God manifested; for he causes those to be meek in innocence, and burning in the will of God, whom he fills with his grace. Meekness is not pleasing to God without wisdom, nor wisdom without meekness; as it is said by the blessed Job, that he was meek and righteous. What is righteousness without meekness? Or what is meekness without righteousness? But the Holy Ghost, who teaches both righteousness and meekness, should be manifested both as fire and as a dove, for he causes the hearts of those men whom he enlightens with his grace to be meek through innocence, and kindled by love and wisdom. God is, as Paul said, a consuming fire. He is a fire unspeakable and invisible. Concerning that fire Jesus said, “I come because I would send fire on earth, and I will that it burn.” He sent the Holy Ghost on earth, and he by his inspiration kindled the hearts of earthly men. Then burns the earth, when the earthly man’s heart is kindled to love of God, which before was cold through fleshly lusts.

The Holy Ghost is not in his nature existing as he was seen, for he is invisible; but for the sign, as we before said, he appeared as a dove and as fire. He is called in the Greek tongue Παρακλητος, that is, Comforting Spirit, because he comforts the sad, who repent of their sins, and gives them hope of forgiveness, and alleviates their sorrowful minds. He forgives sins, and he is the way to forgiveness of all sins. He gives his grace to whom he will. To one man he gives wisdom and eloquence, to one good knowledge, to one great faith, to one power to heal the sick, to one prophetic power, to one discrimination of good and evil spirits; to one he gives divers tongues, to one interpretation of divers sayings. The Holy Ghost does all these things, distributing to everyone as to him seems good; for he is the Almighty Worker, and as soon as he enlightens the mind of a man, he turns it from evil to good. He enlightened the heart of David, when in youth he loved the harp, and made him to be a psalmist. There was a cow-herd called Amos, whom the Holy Ghost turned to a great prophet. Peter was a fisher, whom the same Spirit of God turned to an apostle. Paul persecuted Christian men, whom he chose for instructor of all nations. Matthew was a toll-gatherer, whom he turned to an evangelist. The apostles durst not preach the true faith, for fear of the Jewish folk; but after that they were fired by the Holy Ghost, they despised all bodily tortures, and fearlessly preached the greatness of God.

Ælfric of Eynsham, Homiles of the Anglo-Saxon Church, “On the Holy Day of Pentecost”

Bede on Pentecost

When the children of Israel had been freed from slavery in Egypt by the immolation of the paschal lamb, they went out through the desert so that they might come to the promised land, and they reached Mount Sinai. On the fiftieth day after the Passover, the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire, accompanied by the sound of a trumpet and thunder and lightning, and with a clear voice He laid out for them the ten commandments of the law. As a memorial of the law He had given, He established a sacrifice to Himself from the first-fruits of that year, to be celebrated annually on that day… It is obvious to all who read what the immolation of the paschal lamb and the escape from slavery in Egypt meant, for “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” He is the true Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world, who has redeemed us from the slavery of sin at the price of His blood, and by the example of His resurrection has shown us the hope of life and everlasting liberty. The law was given on the fiftieth day after the slaying of the lamb, when the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire; likewise on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of our Redeemer, which is today, the grace of the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples as they were assembled in the upper room. Appearing visibly and externally as fire, He shed rays of the light of knowledge invisibly on their inmost thoughts and kindled in them the inextinguishable ardor of charity…

There, on Sinai, the crashing of the thunder and the blasts of the trumpet resounded in the midst of flames of fire and flashes of lightning. Here, in the upper room, along with the vision of tongues of fire there “came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.” But although in both bestowals, namely of the law and of grace, a sound was heard outwardly, yet here by a more extensive miracle, when the sound was heard there was present the power of a heavenly gift, which would teach the hearts of the disciples inwardly without a sound. There, after all the legal decrees had been heard, the entire people answered with one voice, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” Here, after the assembly of the Church, which was being born, had received the enlightenment of the Spirit, they spoke of the wonders of God in the languages of all countries.

– Bede the Venerable, Homilies on the Gospels II.17

For the Shepherd Who Is Also the Path the Sun Makes in Daytime

A good shepherd is a wonder in contrapposto, an artist
mapping the Serengeti with kingdom lines.

A good shepherd angles a lion’s eye, traps gazelles
in dry fields, copies a cheetah’s spots one leg at a time.

A good shepherd does not give you stones
when you ask for toast, does not ask you to work

without a burning bush—but owns a gate, uses a gate, pulls
the weeds and leaves the wheat on an altar of choices.

A good shepherd is a prince of peace when terror finds its full echo,
a creator in the wild where a predator, providentially, becomes prey.

– Komal Mathew

I Am the Door of the Sheepfold

I am the door of the sheepfold.
Not one that’s gently hinged or deftly hung,
Not like the ones you planed at Joseph’s place,
Not like the well-oiled openings that swung
So easily for Pilate’s practiced pace,
Not like the ones that closed in Mary’s face
From house to house in brimming Bethlehem,
Not like the one that no man may assail,
The dreadful curtain, the forbidding veil
That waits your breaking in Jerusalem.

Not one you made but one you have become:
Load-bearing, balancing, a weighted beam
To bridge the gap, to bring us within reach
Of your high pasture. Calling us by name,
You lay your body down across the breach,
Yourself the door that opens into home.

– Malcolm Guite, “I Am the Door of the Sheepfold,” The Yale ISM Review: Vol. 1: No. 2, Article 8.

I know my sheep and am known of mine

During the riots in Palestine in the middle thirties, a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle sequestrated by the Government. The inhabitants, however, were permitted to redeem their possessions at a fixed price. Among them was an orphan shepherd boy, whose six or eight sheep and goats were all he had in the world for life and work. Somehow he obtained the money for their redemption. He went to the big enclosure where the animals were penned, offering his money to the British sergeant in charge.

The N.C.O. told him he was welcome to the requisite number of animals, but ridiculed the idea that he could possibly pick out his “little flock” from among the confiscated hundreds. The little shepherd thought differently, because he knew better; and giving his own “call”, for he had his nai (shepherd’s pipe) with him, “his own” separated from the rest of the animals and trotted out after him. “I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep—and am known of mine.”

– Eric F. F. Bishop, Jesus of Palestine, pp. 297–298

The Living and True Bread

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, God the Lord of knowledge, who gives His wonders and orders all things well, who rides upon the clouds, the Lord is His name: may He, the living and true Bread, who descended from heaven to give food to the hungry, indeed still more to be Himself the food for the living, come into being for us in this bread, through which the hearts are strengthened, so that through the power of this bread we are able to fast during these forty days without the impediment of flesh and blood: now that we have the Bread Himself who nourishes the poor with loaves, who consecrated the forty-day fast through Moses and Elijah when they fasted for forty days, who later in His own fasting for us marked the same numbers of days with the solemn practice of fasting, let us strive to imitate what the Lord Himself accomplished for us in the weakness of our body in forty days without interruption, albeit little by little with the same calculated number of days by observing the arrangement of the evening meals: through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who on the day before…

Missale Gothicum, Prayer after the Sanctus in the Beginning of Lent

Give us this Bread during these forty days

It is truly meet and just, right and salutary that we give thanks to You, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, through Christ our Lord, who is Your only-begotten Son and who abides in Your glory, in whom the faith of those who fast is fed, hope is carried forward and love strengthend: for He is the living and true bread, who descended from heaven and always abides in heaven, who is an eternal being and the food of virtue: indeed Your Word, through which everything came into being, is not only the food of human hearts but is also the bread of the angels themselves: with the nourishment of this bread Your servant Moses fasted for forty days and nights when he received Your law, and abstained from the food of the flesh in order to be more receptive to Your sweetness, living from Your Word: he lived in the spirit from His sweetness, and on his face he received His light: therefore he felt no physical hunger and forgot the food of the earth, because the sight of Your glory brightened him and the Word of God, infused through the Spirit, fed him: deign, O Lord, to give us this Bread during these forty days, which we enter today by beginning with the mortification of the forty-day abstinence, and enkindle us, so that we thirst for it unceasingly: when we eat His body, which is sanctified by You, we are strengthened, and when we drink His blood with a longing draught, we are cleansed: through Christ our Lord, through whom…

Missale Gothicum, Prayer of Sacrifice in the Beginning of Lent

Lent – George Herbert

Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is composed of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou would allow
To every Corporation.

The humble soul composed of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He says, in things which use has justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.

Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fullness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
Revenging the delight.

Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men’s abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; left by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.

It’s true, we cannot reach Christs forti’th day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better then to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior’s purity;
Yet are we bid, Be holy ev’n as He.
In both, let’s do our best.

Who goes in the way which Christ has gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, then one
That travels byways;
Perhaps my God, though He be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast,
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

*spellings modernized

George Herbert, from The Temple

The whole life of men is but one day

It may be said that the whole life of men is but one day, according to the parable, and that they who are called by the Master of the vineyard in the morning early, are they who from their childhood were called to do the things of the kingdom of God. They who, after they had come to adolescence, begin to serve God are they who are called about the third hour. They who begin as men fully grown are they who were called at the sixth hour. They who in mature age are converted to the work of God are those of the ninth hour, who after the heat of youth, and before the burden of old age, take on themselves the word of the Lord. And the old, who are near to death, are signified by those called at the eleventh hour to labour in the vineyard. 

Since it is the purpose that governs life and not the time, which is scrutinised, and in which a man labours in hope: therefore, to every man who labours earnestly, from the time of his calling, an equal reward will be given. Hence they who were faithful from their childhood, who have laboured much, enduring the temptations and difficulties of youth, are grieved at seeing themselves receive an equal reward of salvation with those standing idle from their childhood till old age: standing as it were idle in unbelief, they have come now for but a brief while to believe and to labour. 

– Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Matthew