Whitsun Week

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy 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 the merits of Christ Jesus thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. -Collect for Whitsunday/Pentecost

Whitsun Week is the Sunday of Pentecost through Trinity Sunday, being an 8 day Octave. It marks the Descent of The Holy Ghost, which is the final revelation of Jesus Christ, whereby he pours out his Spirit upon us for the coming Harvest. It thus has apocalyptic undertones. After the last day of the octave comes Trinity Sunday which starts Trinitytide.

At the Tower of Babel, Mankind was scattered through the confusion of tongues. At Pentecost, the Holy Ghost begins gathering peoples back into unity through the Church and the proclamation of the mighty works of God

Whitsunday was known as Pentecost. However, the Norman Conquest of England (1066) brought many linguistic and liturgical changes. Some say the vestment colour for Pentecost and its octave were white, thus "White" + "Sunday" became "Whitsunday." Eventually, it returned to red to signify the "flaming tongues" that descended upon The Apostles. A 13th c. man from Shropshire suggested its was actually because "whit," aka wit, is about the pouring out of wisdom from the Holy Ghost upon the Church. A fittingly witty explanation. The photo above shows the customary white dresses of women and girls in large Whitsun processions.

Yet, Whitsunday/Pentecost didn't start in the High Medieval era, it was originally a festival of Israel, when the Catholic Church still existed as a shadow and type under the Old Covenant.

Old Testament Celebration

This feast was established by the Lord and recorded in the Old Testament:

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals; they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord. And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the Lord. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. -Leviticus 23:15-20

Here, we can see a "sabbath of sabbaths," i.e. if one sabbath is 7 days (a week), then a "sabbath of sabbaths" is seven weeks, 7 x 7 = 49 days. Then Leviticus says "even the morrow," i.e. then "tomorrow," the day after the 49th day, this festival shall be held. Because of this week of weeks calculation, it was known by the Israelites as the "Festival of Weeks." After Hellenism and the Greek language spread to Israel via Alexander the Great (300s BC), most Israelites used the Greek term for the festival - pentekoste - i.e. "fiftieth" in Greek.

The priest shall offer seven lambs and bread is still fulfilled by the Catholic Mass. Whitsunday through Whit Saturday has daily Mass in which the Lamb of God is offered each day. (The eighth day being Trinity Sunday.) The day of Whitsunday plus the 7 days after gives you the 8-day Octave of Pentecost or "Whitsun Week." The Church did not preserve Whitsun Week as a theoretical feast, but embodied it as a sacred rhythm of societal rest for all Christendom.

Whitsun Week as a Sabbath of sabbaths

During the Medieval era, serfs had three major weeks off a year (not to mention the many Solemnities, Feasts, and season times). This was one of those weeks (along with the Christmastide and Eastertide Octaves). Compare that to the typical two week vacation most people get today. Medieval Christendom ordered labor and festal rest around the Church’s calendar long before modern labor reforms. While industrialization often dissolved these older rhythms, later movements for workers’ protections recovered, in altered form, some of what had already been embedded within Christendom. The Church has always tried to protect workers and set stable rhythms of life based off the Church's Kalendar. The Kalendar is how the Lord commands us to order time in our societies by organizing hours, day, weeks, months, and years around the Divine Life. Therefore, the Whitsun Week tradition traces its roots back to The Scriptures themselves. If one is to rest on the sabbath, then the logic followed that they should rest on the "Sabbath of sabbaths" also.

This sort of sabbath rest for Whitsun Week is a mark of a Catholic Culture. In some places the Masses for it continue but no secular customs have been born out of it. In other places, the secular customs continue but Masses for it either are gone or go ignored. The holy and the secular have been detached in such a way that the Church has thus been compartmentalized.

Yet, the Whitsun Week customs were not simply holiday playtime. The Church Fathers understood this octave within a wider mystery of the eighth day of Creation.

8th Day Theology

This 8 day "octave" of rest ends with another solemn assembly, the sacrifice of the Mass. We start Whitsun Week with Mass at Whitsunday and end Whitsun Week with Mass at Trinity Sunday. Whereas the original Sabbath was on Day 7 (Saturday), the 8th Day (Sunday) signifies to us that Sunday is both the first day of the week, so we start our weeks with worship, and the eighth day, so we end our weeks with worship. We offer unto the Lord what He has given us, having asked Him to help us with the week. We add our sacrifices to His sacrifice of the Mass.

Part of Patristic exegesis of Genesis is that the Lord creates all in 7 days, then rests, but leaves Man with a charge to till, have dominion, be fruitful, and multiply. This means there is work to be done and therefore Creation is not done in the sense that while it has been made, it has yet to be fulfilled. Therefore, the Patristics say that since the days of Genesis, Man has been waiting for this fulfillment on the 8th Day. This means Sunday is not just the first day of Creation, but the last.

Creation as a whole therefore tends to The Eternal Sabbath known as "The 8th Day" (Genesis 2:2-3 cm. Psalm 95:11, Hebrews 4:9). In other words, the cosmos has a purpose, a telos. We can pick all this out of Leviticus 23 because as St. Augustine says, "The Old [Testament] is the New [Testament] hidden." In other words, Creation tends toward communion, unity. The fulfillment of Creation requires the gathering together of scattered humanity.

All of these these themes come together in Whitsunday: worship, unity, fulfillment, sacred rhythms, first fruits, and the sanctification of time & creation.

New Testament Celebration

We see the Festival of Weeks becoming Whitsunday or Pentecost in the New Testament. Recall Jesus said, "I come not to abolish, but to fulfill."

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. -Acts of the Apostles 2:1

And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. -Acts of the Apostles 2:2-4

The Fathers often saw Pentecost as the healing of the Tower of Babel episode. The peoples once divided by pride are now gathered together in Christ through the gift of the Spirit. This work of unification, redemption, and salvation is called 'the Church.'

Whitsun Week marks the end of a large time of feasting and relaxing of penances following Lent. If we fast for 40, we feast at least for 50. There is a custom of resuming more rigorous fasting after Trinity Sunday, especially during Wednesdays and Fridays during Trinitytide as we see St. Irenaeus suggesting. This follows the long period of Eastertide feasting.

Early Church Celebration

We also have evidence of The Early Church celebrating Whitsun Week, continuing Christ's fulfillment of the Festival of Weeks via Whitsunday. This shows us a golden thread from Scripture into and through Tradition. What we have received we continue to celebrate to this day. We see standing rather than kneeling as a mark of celebration (the Resurrected Christ makes us "worthy to stand"), Baptisms being conferred on Pentecost as ideal only next to the Easter Vigil, and a regular rhythm of fasting and feasting picking back up after Trinity Sunday.

he makes mention of Pentecost also; upon which [feast] we do not bend the knee -Fragments from the Lost Writings of St. Irenaeus (130-202 AD)

After that, Pentecost is a most joyous space for conferring baptisms; -Tertullian (155-240 AD); On Baptism

after you have kept the festival of Pentecost, keep one week more festival, and after that fast; for it is reasonable to rejoice for the gift of God, and to fast after that relaxation -Apostolic Constitutions, Book V (375-380 AD)

After Whitsun Week you have the End of the Eastertide & Pentecost Octave feasting and celebrations. There is a time after the end of said octave, Trinity Sunday, that we get back to the regular rhythms of Friday penances, Sunday feasting, etc. Hopefully this regular Trinitytide rhythm of fasting and feasting is better tempered and regulated after celebrating the Mysteries of Christ up till that point. Over centuries, these liturgical festivities overflowed into the ordinary life of Catholic peoples. This gave rise to a rich array of local customs and celebrations. These customs arose organically as Catholics responded to the divine gifts of the Liturgical Year.

Fun Secular Customs

Whitsun Week was one of the three weeks Serfs had off work in the Medieval Feudal culture. Whitsun Walks were popular, giant parades that developed into 25,000 person processionals even into the 20th c. Whitsun Week became a secular holiday due to its popularity. The picture at the beginning of this article is one such procession. These were spectacular city events that many joined in. Secular fun activities like foot races, bike races, wrestling matches, dog shows, boat races, and beach trips became popular. (NOTE: Here “secular” does not mean irreligious, but worldly in the older Catholic sense — life lived within society rather than out of the world and in the monastery. Eg a "secular priest" can be met at any given parish. The other "Secular" is a kind of philosophy and anti-culture.)

During parades, the Morris dance which is still performed today, was a popular choreographed dance by the 1400s. These dances were especially popular on Whit Monday. At processions and social gatherings, young single ladies wore white veils. (White denoting singleness, black signifies one is married.) Whitsun Ales were a popular brew; the Arcadia Brewing Company still makes one.

Fun Liturgical Customs

Saint Aelred Catholic Church always has Mass with the Plainsong chant of the ancient Whitsun hymn: Veni Creator Spiritus (Come Creator Spirit - #217 in the 1940 TEC Hymnal) for the plenary indulgence.  Its Latin lyrics date back to the 9th c. and were translated into English in the 17th c. by the Anglican John Cosin. We follow this with a Whitsun Feast with the Lord & Lady of the Ale, aka our Pentecost Parish Picnic. This includes "flaming tongues" food: pepperjack burgers, hot wings, jalapeno pimento cheese sandwiches, spicy sausage dip, spicy peppers & pickles, and the like along with typical summer salads, sides, and fixin's.

Duffy recounts in Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 how one cathedral had a metal dove censer that was loaded full of incense and swung about during Whitsunday such that sparks and smoke flew out during The Mass.

At St. Mary & All the Martyrs at the old Pantheon in Rome - rose petals are dropped to imitate flaming tongues while a traditional hymn for Pentecost is chanted Veni Sancte Spiritus (O Come, Holy Ghost). We usually drop rose petals around the Church during Mass at St. Aelred during Whitsun Week.

Because this living tradition formed people through feasting and festivity, it left a deep impression upon the literary imagination of Christendom.

Poetry & Literature

• Whitsunday by George Herbert

  • 17th c. Anglican; from his book The Temple

• Whitsun-week by John Keble (click on Whitsunday)

  • 19th c. Anglican from his book Christian Year.

  • There is a poem for each day of Whitsun Week

• Whitsunday by Alessandro Manzoni

  • 18th c. Italian revert to Catholicism.

  • Manzoni is famous for his book The Betrothed and he was cited by Pope Pius XI's magnificent encyclical on Catholic Education: Divini Illius Magistri

• Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot

  • 19th-20th c. Anglo-Catholic; set in Pentecost about Nicholas Ferrar's idyllic Christian Town

• God's Grandeur by Richard Crashaw

  • 17th c. Anglo-Catholic convert to Catholicism; the Holy Ghost renews Creation even after Man trods it down and tries to exhaust it

• Ingots of Gold by Agatha Christie

  • Whitsunday and Whitsun Monday are major clues and markers within the mystery

  • In a small coastal town, a man befriends a millionaire and they set out to discover gold ingots lost on a Spanish galleon

• The Scandalous Adventures of Reynard the Fox by Harry J. Owens

  • 20th c. retelling of a Medieval tale occurring during the season of Whitsun Week

  • A fox is brought to a series of trials for tricking other animals

  • little crude, humour for adults and children

• Perceval by Chrétien de Troyes

• Le Morte de Arthur by Thomas Malory

  • 15th c. English author; a vision of the Holy Grail on Whitsunday sets off the entire Quest for the Grail in which the Holy Ghost sends Perceval to find the long lost relic of Jesus given to the English Catholic Church via St. Joseph of Arimathea

• The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin

  • a man on a train notices over a dozen couples being wedded, a haunting vestige of a bygone Catholic custom, but also a warm reminder than sacredness and transformation occurs in ordinary life

In summary, these various Whitsun processions, feasts, games, customs, poems, tales, etc. all form part of the wider English Christian patrimony now preserved, alive, and growing within the Ordinariate.

Why is Whitsun Week Particularly Significant to The Ordinariate?

The Mission of the Ordinariate is to evangelize and bring Protestants into full communion with Rome. The Ordinariate also happens to attract a number of "reverts," those who defected or gradually left the Faith then found their way back to the Catholic Church by sundry means. Confirmation is how Protestants ritually and formally enter The Catholic Church. Many reverts are those who were baptised but never confirmed, having left early or didn't "choose" confirmation, thinking it was a decision about one's private faith rather than a gift of a public faith. For this reason, when reverts come back, many immediately seek Confirmation to renew and seal their Baptisms and to finish their initiation as a Catholic.

Because the first Confirmation was Whitsunday (Acts 2), it marks a day of Christian Unity by the outpouring of The Holy Ghost. This submission to Catholic Confirmation requires an act of humility. For former Protestants of a sacramental sort, i.e. Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, etc. it requires one to understand that their former, Protestant "Confirmation" was invalid - invalid because the Holy Orders (Priesthood) of the one who attempted to confirm them was invalid, or "absolutely null and utterly void" as the popes say. Therefore, a Protestant from this sort of background does not say "I got confirmed twice" but rather, "I was confirmed once in the Catholic Church," and "I once tried to effect the sacrament without a valid priest, but I was seeking Christ, and he made good use out of that search."

But what's more, Mother Church was kind enough to give such people confirmed in an Ordinariate parish a great gift - the Anglican Patrimony in the Catholic Church. This is, put simply, how we go about Mass, sacraments, prayer, and the like to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." It has roots in medieval England but it has grown outward to every English speaking country, including the U.S., and was made to organically grow within such a people as ourselves. The Ordinariate's founding document states it was given to us for the following purpose:

to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared. -Anglicanorum Coetibus; Pope Benedict XVI

Whitsunday is the proper time for Confirmations. One can see the attempt in the Ordinariate, as well as elsewhere, to revive the old Whitsun Eve Mass, aka the Pentecost Vigil, as the privileged time for Confirmations, just as the Easter Vigil is the privileged and fitting time for Baptisms. For bringing in former Protestants into the Church - tis the season. For bringing back reverts and completing their initiation - tis the season. Thus, Whitsun Week holds a special place in the hearts of the Ordinariate faithful because our Mission is to bring Protestants home to The Church to fulfill the words of Christ "that they all may be one." Tis the season in which those who lived in the Tower of Babel, the World, and found themselves scattered: lonely, isolated, living fragmented and largely unintelligible lives, find their way back home to the Church. And the Church receives them with joy. The Ordinariate thus acts as a kind of 'Whitsun diocese' which is aimed at restoring English speakers back into one fold under one shepherd after having been so scattered to the winds like the Babel episode of old. How might the Ordinariate aid our prayers to such an end?

What to Pray for during this Season?

For the Anglican Patrimony in the Catholic Church O HOLY Ghost the Lord, who on Pentecost gavest the Church the gift of tongues that Christ might be known, loved, and served by peoples of divers nations and customs: Watch over the English heritage within thy Church, we pray thee, that, led by thy guidance and strengthened by thy grace, this worthy patrimony may find such favour in thy sight that the people formed therein may increase both in holiness and number, and so show forth thy glory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Son, one God world without end. Amen.

For Christian Unity O GOD, who dost bring into the way of truth them that are gone astray, dost gather together them that are scattered abroad, and preserve them that thou hast gathered: We beseech thee, of thy mercy to pour out upon all Christian people thy grace of communion; that, all divisions being done away, they may be one flock, in one fold, under one Shepherd, and do thee worthy service; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

Then, imagine your most loved ones whom you desire to join the fullness of The Faith. Offer their names up to The Lord. Pray The Holy Ghost to soften their hearts, move them to repentance, and encourage their consciences to always follow Truth - wherever it may lead them. Speak to Him. If an unjust judge will listen to a nagging widow (Luke 18), how much more will your loving Father hear your prayer? As we pray in The Daily Office:

V: O Lord hear our prayer R: And let our cry come unto thee.

When you are done, "wait in quiet, knowing that the Spirit's voice is heard in silence." After a period of silence, give thanks to Him, for His "mercy endureth forever" (Ps. 136).

Happy Whitsuntide!