– Don Enrico Finotti
The Pentecost Vigil seems to find a growing consensus, but everything happens with total creativity: we go from a celebration, to a show, to a conference, to testimonies, etc. What does the liturgy of the Church offer us today?
A recurrent recommendation in various liturgical books and documents of the Church is that concerning the Vigil of Pentecost, made in the image of the Easter Vigil and celebrated in the evening hours of the vigil. The indications of the Church are explicit: “On the model of the Easter Vigil, the custom of starting other solemnities with a vigil was introduced in the various churches: among them the Christmas of the Lord and Pentecost” (Principi e norme per la liturgia delle ore, n. 71, author’s translation). “… Significant importance was assumed, especially in the cathedral church but also in the parishes, for the protracted celebration of Mass on Christmas Eve, which has the character of an intense and persevering prayer of the entire Christian community, following the example of the Apostles united in unanimous prayer with the Mother of the Lord ….” (Congregazione per il Culto Divino, Direttorio su pietà popolare e liturgia – Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002, p. 131, n. 156, author’s translation).
It is known that the Church since the most remote antiquity had a Vigil also at Pentecost and that it was fundamentally a reduction of the Easter one, an additional place to confer the sacraments of the Christian initiation for those who had not been able to receive them on Easter night. This Vigil, celebrated later on the morning of the Pentecost vigil, as was the case for the Easter Vigil, was suppressed with the reform of the 1960 rubrics. The liturgical reform resumes the invitation to celebrate this Vigil, naturally on time and with criteria completely renewed in analogy to the Easter Vigil. The current Vigil Mass, in fact, offers a rich lectionary (four lessons from the Old Testament with related psalms and orations) to celebrate an authentic Vigil of Pentecost, no longer in the morning, but in the most appropriate hour after the first vespers. It is true that at the moment it is an offer of useful material and a recommendation, but the road is open and those who wish to take care of the Pentecost liturgy have appropriate means and indications. (Congregazione per il Culto Divino, Direttorio su pietà popolare e liturgia – Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002, p. 130 – 132, n. 155 – 156).
Even if it is not explicitly affirmed, the Vigil can be enriched by an adequate ‘lucernale,’ being a nocturnal celebration and, in analogy with the baptismal liturgy of the Easter Vigil, it will be possible to think of a chrismal liturgy, which through a solemn profession of faith renews in the faithful the gift of the Holy Spirit received in the sacrament of Confirmation. The classic four parts of the Easter Vigil can thus also be reflected in the Pentecost Vigil: liturgy of light, liturgy of the word, chrismal liturgy, eucharistic liturgy. The freedom that the Church currently allows with very general indications could offer the opportunity to determine more precisely and competently a Pentecost Vigil that can stand the qualitative height of the Easter Vigil and thus build the faithful with a ritual worthy of the solemnity of the mystery celebrated. The danger that can undermine the pastoral care of today is, on the one hand, to let go of these liturgical indications by lowering the Pentecost to a normal Sunday devoid of the typicality of the rites provided by tradition, on the other side of replacing the vigil with fragile celebrations of private composition continuously variable according to the moods of the moment, which would lack the value and effectiveness of a liturgical action. The serious and qualified commitment of some pilot communities could offer over time a liturgical form more determined and worthy of the nobility and caliber of a true liturgical act, which the Church could in the future assume and approve for the edification of the entire people of God.
(From Il mio e il vostro sacrificio. Il liturgista risponde, 2018©Chorabooks. Translated by Aurelio Porfiri. Used with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved)
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