Saint Maximus, Bishop of Turin in Italy – Sermon given on Pentecost.

Sermon 44. On Pentecost.

1. Your holiness{1} should know, brethren, why we celebrate this holy day of Pentecost and why for 50 days we have a continual and uninterrupted festival, such that during this entire time we neither proclaim a fast to be held nor prostrate ourselves to implore God but, as we are wont to do on Sunday, celebrate the resurrection of the Lord while standing erect and in festal mood. For to us Sunday is venerable and solemn because on it the Savior, like the rising sun, broke forth with the light of resurrection and scattered the darkness of the nether regions, and consequently this day is called the day of the sun by people of the world because, since Christ the sun of justice{2} has arisen, He illuminates it. The whole course of 50 days is celebrated on the model of Sunday, then, and all these days are counted as Sundays, since the resurrection is a Sunday{3}. For the Savior, rising on a Sunday, came back to men, and after the resurrection He remained the whole 50 days with them. It is necessary, then, that there be an equal celebration of those things whose holiness is equal. For the Lord arranged it that, just as we mourned over His suffering with the fasts of a 40-day period, so we would rejoice over His resurrection during the festivals of a 50-day period.

2. And so we do not fast for 50 days because the Lord abides with us during these days. We do not fast, I say, when the Lord is present because He Himself says: Can the friends of the bridegroom fast as long as the bridegroom is with them? (Luke 5.34). For why should the body abstain from food when the soul is filled with the presence of the Lord? The one who is refreshed by the Savior’s grace cannot be a faster, for the companionship of Christ is a kind of food for the Christian. We are refreshed, then, in this 50-day period when the Lord is with us. But when He ascends to heaven after these days we fast again, as the Savior says: But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast in those days (Luke 5.35). For when Christ ascends to heaven and is removed from our sight we suffer hunger not of body but of love, and we are burdened not so much by want of food as by desire. For our eyes suffer a kind of desire when they do not see the one whom they seek, as the prophet says: My eyes have grown dim while I hope in my God (Ps. 69.3). The eyes of the prophet grew dim because he did not yet see the one whom he hoped that he would see. In the same way the eyes of the apostles also grew dim when they were unable to see the Lord going to heaven, as Luke says: And in their sight he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their eyes (Acts. 1.9). The blessed apostles stood, their bodies completely tense, and followed the Lord ascending to heaven with their eyes since they could not with their feet, and although human vision failed to catch the Savior, nonetheless faith’s devotion did not fail. For their eyes follow Christ up to the cloud, but up to the heavens they are united with Christ by the eagerness of faith. Hence the Apostle says, knowing that our faith is in heaven with the Lord: But our way of life is in heaven (Phil. 3.20).

3. The cloud, then, removed the Savior from the eyes of the apostles. Let us see, therefore, what this cloud is, so splendid and so brilliant, that deserves to receive Christ, the light of the world. It could not have been night-like or bleak or darksome, since it is written: And the darkness did not grasp it (John 1.5). For the darkness was unable to bear the light. But this is the cloud that caught up Christ in His ascent, which also bore testimony to Christ on the mountain; about it the Evangelist says: A voice from the cloud was heard saying: This is my beloved Son, hear Him (Luke 9.35). It was not a cloud that received Christ, then, but God the Father who received His Son, and by a kind of loving embrace He grasped the ascending one to His tender bosom{4}. The Father, therefore, is said to receive the Son in the shady place of the cloud so that by this refreshment, so to speak, He might be shown to care for the wounds of His suffering. For after the cross, after the violence, after the nether world there is no greater refreshment for Christ than to be overshadowed by the power of the Divinity, as is said to Mary at His conception: And the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1.35). The most high Father, then, who at Christ’s conception overshadowed Mary in His power, received Him in a cloud when He was ascending. For God always leads to rest those who have suffered violence and protects them under the shadow of His cloud, as He protected the children of Israel, freed from Egypt, by the pillar of cloud{5} And that He might lead them into the land of promise after much toil He cares for them in a shady place of refreshment, as the prophet says: He spread a cloud to cover them (Ps. 105.39). He spread a cloud lest they grow weary from the sun’s heat in the dryness of the desert.

4. Let us be glad, then, on this holy day, just as we were glad at Easter. For on each day there is one and the same solemnity. At Easter all the pagans are usually baptized, while at Pentecost the apostles were baptized, as the Lord said to His disciples when He was about to ascend to heaven: John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you will receive after a few days (Acts. 1.5). And therefore Luke says: But when the days of Pentecost were completed, suddenly there was a sound from heaven as of the powerful coming of the Spirit, and He rested upon each one of them (Acts. 2.1-3).

 

The Sermons of St. Maximus of Turin, trans. by B. Ramsey, New York 1989, p. 109-111.

 

1 sanctitas vestra: cf. Sermon 4 n. 2.

2 Cf. Mal. 4.2.

3 Cf. Ambrose, Exp. evang. sec. Luc. 8. 25.

4 gremio, i.e. lap or bosom, usually understood in a maternal sense.

5 Cf. Ambrose, Exp. evang. sec. Luc. 8. 25.

23.06.2024