Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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A Theology of the Christian Year, continued

fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Christ, and now their universal consummation was awaited. Good Friday, which emerged into prominence with the more chronologically, geographically, and even dramatically oriented liturgical events of Holy Week around the sites of Jerusalem in the latter fourth century, had some earlier grounding in the weekly observance of Fridays as fast days. Palm Sunday, and then Maundy Thursday, became purely annual occasions in which the historical commemoration of the detailed events of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the Last Supper was the dominant content. Eastertide From Tertullian we know also that, as early as the second century, Easter extended forward into a “most joyous season” of fifty days. During the entire seven weeks of Eastertide, Christians did not kneel for prayer but rather stood in order to mark the heavenly location of believers in the risen and exalted Christ, in anticipation of the general resurrection; nor did they fast, for they were enjoying a foretaste of the heavenly banquet with the messianic bridegroom. Easter was the season of the Alleluia, a hopeful sign of the time when “we shall do nothing but praise God” (Augustine). The oldest practice of the church draws heavily on the Fourth Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse for scriptural readings during “the great fifty days”: the followers of Christ, rejoicing in the gift of the other Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, spread the good news of salvation and tasted the life of heaven. Pentecost The fiftieth day of Easter retained the name that could also designate the whole period: Pentecost. The first evidence we have of a special feast to “seal” the Pentecostal period comes from the fourth century. In dependence on Acts 2:1ff., the gift of the Holy Spirit to the 120 is commemorated and the Spirit’s abiding presence in the life and witness of the church is celebrated. Our oldest testimony to the feast links the descent of the Spirit to the ascent of Christ, and preachers continued to make the connection. A separate observance of the Ascension on the fortieth day (cf. Acts 1:3) is, however, attested only a little later than the evidence for the feast of Pentecost of the fiftieth. It may be that first Pentecost, and then Ascension as a distinct feast, together with the development of Holy Week, all mark a