| Pentecost Sunday: |
| THE CHURCH IN THE WOMB |
| Before Our Blessed Lord "departed from them (his disciples), and was carried up to heaven" (Lk. 24,51), "He commanded them, that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith he) by my mouth. For John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not may days hence" (Act.1,4-5). When "A man of the pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. . . came to Jesus by night" (Jn.3,1-2) to talk to Him, Our Lord "said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again? Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (Jn. 3. 1-5). Our Blessed Lord told Nicodemus that this baptism is indeed a birth. |
| Pentecost is the "birthday of the Church". The Bible actually does not begin the story of a man at his nativity. The usual form of expression is: "she conceived and brought forth a child". Does not Our Blessed Lord Himself allude to this fundamental distinction between the "child", cause of the pains of labour, and the "man" born into the world (cf. Jn. 16,21) . Often the father's place (in Holy Scripture, indeed pre-eminent) is highlighted: "she conceived and gave birth to his child" (This paternal attribution is still preserved, when, for example, one is discussing "child support". It is, however, without reason rejected in our culture while the child remains in the womb.) |
| So we could ask ourselves if the Church itself enters sacred history at its birth or is there a prior period of formation, as it were, "in the womb"? In fact in the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit we find many signs and indications that the Church was first conceived and formed before being brought forth to the light or being manifested to the world on the day of Pentecost. |
| According to the command of the Lord, the disciples "returned to Jerusalem from the mount that is called Olivet, which is nigh Jerusalem, within a sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James" (Act. 1. 12-13) . This "upper room", identified by tradition and the writings of the Fathers (cf.: St.Jerome and St. Bede) as the same cenacle where, during the days following the death of the Lord, the Apostles had closeted themselves behind locked doors "for fear of the Jews", was, indeed, as a dark womb where they could remain hidden from the outer world and the light of day. Here the disciples, from the Ascension of the Lord until they "be endued with power from on high" (Lk. 24, 49) would, now, pass nine days or a "novena", representing in mystical fashion the nine months of gestation in the womb. |
| The narration of those days then mentions by name one person in particular as present: "All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren" (Act. 1, 14). On prior occasions when we hear of events in this same room, Mary is not mentioned as present nor is she mentioned as absent, even though on one of those occasions Thomas, one of the twelve, is specifically identified as absent. Mary, of course, did not have a "fear of the Jews". (According to the Old Testament text ascribed by the liturgy to her: "From the beginning, and before the world was I created, and unto to the world to come I shall not cease to be, and in the holy dwelling place, I have ministered before Him. And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honorable people, and in the portion of my God his inheritance, and my abode is in the full assembly of Saints" (Ecclus. 24, 14-16). And then too: "Perfect charity casteth out fear" (1Jn. 4, 18).) |
| The presence of Mary there in the upper room, indeed, is the central and important fact in the formation of the Church. The angel Gabriel at Nazareth had said to Mary: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lk. 1, 35). Just as Mary once conceived the body of Christ, so now also, Mary, "Mother of the Church" will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceive the mystical body of Christ. |
| The significance of the presence of Mary in light also of Old Testament history cannot be ignored. If we recall, the chosen people of God was founded upon the faith of Abraham: "Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice" (Gen. 15, 6; cf. Rm. 4, 3,9) . It would be no less important that the new chosen people of God, the Church, be founded on faith, and that faith could not be the weak, wavering and imperfect faith of the Apostles. It would have to be founded upon the perfect faith of Mary who, in contrast to Zachary, who was struck dumb for doubting, believed the word of the Angel. |
| This body forming over nine days in the "upper room", already has its head: ". . .Christ is the head of the Church. He is the Saviour of His body" (Ep. 5,23; cf.: Ep.1, 22-23) (Ep. 5,30) . |
| This body, compared by Saint Paul to the constructing of a "holy temple": "in whom all the building being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord" (Eph. 2, 21), is explained by him as an habitation of God in the Spirit: "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone" (Eph. 2, 20). "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body. . . For the body also is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, because I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? . . . But now God hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased Him. And if they all were one member, where would be the body? But now there are many members indeed, yet one body. . . Now you are the body of Christ, and members of member. And God indeed hath set some in the Church; first Apostles. . ." (1Cor. 12, 12-15, 18-20, 27-28) . |
| So the body has a visible head as well: "Thou are Peter", declared Jesus, "and upon this rock, I will build my Church" (Mt. 16, 18 ). "Feed my lambs. . . Feed My sheep" (Jn. 21, 15-17). And in fact even before the decent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Peter is the first to arise and take command, as if addressing the first order of the day, concerning the things of Scripture that would be fulfilled among them: "In those days Peter rising up in the midst of the brethren, said: (now the number of persons together was about an hundred and twenty). Men, brethren, the Scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was the leader of them that apprehended Jesus. . . For it is written in the book of Psalms: 'Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell therein. And his bishopric let another take' (Ps. 108, 8) . . . And they appointed two, Joseph, called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place. And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered among the eleven apostles" (Act. 1, 15-17, 23-26) . |
| This re-constitution of the Apostolic college of twelve has tremendous significance in light of the Old Testament: "Abraham begot Isaac. And Isaac begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Judas and his brethren" (Mt. 1, 2). Abraham, as if a single cell, begets Isaac, who begets Israel (Jacob) who begets twelve sons who will make up the Hebrew nation or the "people of God" in the promised land. So just as the first chosen people was built upon the twelve sons of Israel, so the new chosen people will be built upon the twelve apostles. Speaking to the Apostles, Our Blessed Lord signifies this connection: "You are they who have continued with me in my temptations: And I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom; that you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom: and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Lk. 22, 28-30). |
| It was Christ Himself who set a condition of having "continued with me" for being numbered in this unique apostolic body. Saint Peter, therefore, in filling up the "ministry and apostleship" lost by Judas, rules, with authority: "Wherefore, of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, until the day wherein He was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of his resurrection" (Act. 1, 21-22) . Even before the sending of the Holy Spirit on the day of, Pentecost, Saint Peter, in the opinion of the Fathers (cf.: St. Gregory; Lapide; Lepicier), with the other Apostles, had received the divine power to constitute another "bishopric" (Jn. 20, 21-23). |
| Later Saint Paul also would come to be considered an "Apostle" (1Cor. 1, 1) and, while insisting on his authority as an eye-witness, he would explain his being numbered belatedly among them in the language of the womb: "And last of all, He was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time" (1Cor. 15. 8) . |
| The first event to be recorded by the Gospels in this protected environment of the upper room is the institution of the Holy Eucharist (cf.: Mt. 26, 26-28; Mk. 14, 12-25; Lk. 22, 7-20) when the Apostles not only received the sacramental powers to repeat this divine memorial, but were, in fact, ordered by the Sacred Heart to do so (cf.: Lk. 22, 19; 1Cor. 11, 24). Must we not then assume that now even before the coming of the Holy Ghost, this forming body of the Church was already being nourished from the womb of the Cenacle with the Body and Blood of Christ? Already on the day of the Resurrection, did not the disciples on the way to Emmaus recognize Our Divine Lord "in the breaking of the Bread" (Lk. 24, 35; cf.: 28-35)? |
| Thus it is that nine days during which the Apostles were "preservering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren" (Act. 1, 14), does not represent an arbitrary period in which Christ, though already ascended to the Father, is unable to "send the Holy Spirit", but a most important time of gestation, if you will, during which the developing mystical body of Christ would be gradually prepared in the protected nourishing womb of the "upper room" for its manifestation to the world with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. |
| Father Thomas Carleton |
| Pentecost, 2004 |