Pentecost
Day of Pentecost service
Let us pray (in silence) [that we rejoice in the Spirit guiding our lives]
pause
Almighty God,
you kindled this day the light of your Spirit
in the hearts of your faithful people;
may we by the same Spirit
have a right judgment in all things,
and evermore rejoice in your love and power;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
NZPB p. 604b
The New Zealand Lectionary instructs that the collect for the Day of Pentecost be used during the following week until Saturday. This completely misunderstands the ecumenical, international liturgical renewal which has returned to the insight that the Day of Pentecost ends the Easter Season - it is the culmination of the Great Fifty Days of the Easter season. The instruction in the New Zealand lectionary undermines the integrity of this renewal. It is not surprising that other Prayer Books (USA, CofE Common Worship) expressly forbids this practice. The collect for the week following the Day of Pentecost is, of course, the collect of the Ordinary Sunday proper for the date of Pentecost.
The council of Nicaea was astonished that people were kneeling during this season and forbids kneeling during the fifty days of the Easter Season until Pentecost. The traditional ember days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) that follow this Sunday are a return to the routine practice of fasting forbidden during the Great Fifty Days.
From at least the second century, the Day of Pentecost has been a time to baptise catechumens who were unable to be baptised on Easter Day. These two primary baptismal days, Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost, have expanded to include the feast of the Baptism of Christ, All Saints' Day (or the Sunday following), and when the bishop is present.
Just as there is an Easter Vigil, the early sacramentaries, and the current Roman Missal, provides for a Pentecost vigil.
The collect teaches that the Spirit's light is this day kindled in our hearts, praying that this light might illumine the right course of action in our minds and conscience, and then strengthen our wills to follow God's leading with joy.
The Day of Pentecost is a facet of the great diamond which is the one movement of God's self-emptying in creating the universe, becoming incarnate, dying, rising, sending the Spirit to draw us into divinity. The separation into differing feasts is due to our human time-and-space constrained limitation - but it should little surprise us that John's Gospel has a differing chronology to Luke's stories for Christ's ascending and gifting of the Spirit.
Trinitarian collects, addressed to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit encapsulate in a central prayer (as does the Great Thanksgiving/eucharistic prayer) this movement from God into God.
This collect originates in the Gregorian sacramentary (#526) as the collect for the morning eucharist at St Peter's basilica on the Day of Pentecost. It has been the collect for the Day of Pentecost through the various English Prayer Books from the Sarum missal, where it was:
Deus qui hodierna die corda fidelium sancti spiritus illustratione docuisti: da nobis in eodem spiritu recta sapere, et de eius semper consolatione gaudere.
Since 1549, consolatione has been translated as "comfort" rather than "consolation" (presumably to connect with the Holy Spirit as "comforter" John 14:26 KJV and the the previous Sunday collect). The NZ revisers have altered this to "your love and power".
Common Worship (CofE)
:God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
BCP (USA)
:O God,
who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things,
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.