Eighteenth and Nineteenth Sundays after Pentecost

by Fr. Mark Wojdelski, FSSP

(This is part of a series of articles, and will make little sense without the previous installments here (1) and here (2))

When we last left off, we were just about to look at the Feast of Tabernacles, which God commanded to be observed on the 15th day of the 7th month, called Tishri. Before proceeding to that, we need to examine the Ember Days, which relate to these Sundays, even if they do not fall precisely when they “should” because of how the Ember Days are determined.  Traditionally they began on the Wednesday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14) which always ends up being in the third week of September, if the weeks are calculated in the older, more traditional manner.

As has been observed in many places, the Ember Days correspond to the Day of Atonement and the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles, and mention is also made of the new year (Rosh Hashanah) on Ember Wednesday, when Ezra reads the law in the hearing of the people. (Neh 8:1-10)

The Ember Saturday is where the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles are referred to in the lessons, the first and second lessons respectively. (Lev 23:26-32 and Lev 23:39-43) The gospel alludes to the custom of taking branches from various trees. In modern Judaism, these branches and flowers are used to construct the “bundle” that each practicing Jew must make for himself for the feast. They are allowed to “gift” these bundles to each other but must use their own for the first two days of the feast.¹  “And you shall take on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” (Lev 23:40)

And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Behold, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him. (Lk 13:6-17)

The first part shows the connection to the Feast of Tabernacles, with the tree and the vineyard, and the second part also serves as a reminder to Christians that the Sunday observance does not excuse from works of charity and love of neighbor. If the reader is interested in low-hanging fruit we can also point out that this comes right before the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, and the woman was 18 years in her infirmity.

We now come to the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (15 Tishri). The Ember Days on Saturday all seem to flow into the following Sunday, so much so that those in Lent and Advent share their gospel reading with the following Sunday. This phenomenon has been observed by all the great liturgical scholars, and we will we see that the gospel readings on penitential days most definitely refer to the following day when we eventually start to look at the season of Lent. In any case, these Sundays that followed were called “Dominica vacans” — literally “absent Sunday.”  This means that there was originally no Mass assigned to the morning, since the vigil took all night and ended with the celebration of the Eucharist in the early morning hours of the day.  A later development placed a separate morning Mass there in those communities where the all-night Ember Vigil was not observed. In order not to make this too obvious for future generations, the reading selected for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost is from the gospel of Matthew, somewhat preferentially favored by the Roman rite, perhaps as a special humiliation to St. Mark the Evangelist, whose gospel is sometimes called “Peter’s gospel.”

“And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, take up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. (Mt 9:1-8)

This is a fine reading, the choice of which assumes that the listeners, presumably Romans—since we are dealing with the Roman rite after all—are familiar with the parallel account in St. Mark’s gospel (perhaps not St. Luke’s, though he includes this detail as well): “And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.” (Mk 2:4, cf. Lk 5:19)

The feast of Tabernacles is an interesting feast. As a reminder of its purpose, recall “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the feast of the Lord seven days; on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord seven days in the year; it is a statute for ever throughout your generations; you shall keep it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days; all that are native in Israel shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the sons of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev 23:39–43)

The idea of dwelling in booths seems to be twofold.  One aspect of the observance was to remind the Israelites that this earthly habitation is temporary. The other is to point forward to the coming of Christ, who reminds us, “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Mt 8:20)  We must never become too comfortable in our earthly habitation, whether our body or even the house in which we dwell. All these things can be taken away from us at any time.  In any event, on the day when we are imagining the people are all dwelling in booths, the men removed the roof of the house to let the paralytic down, the man who was helpless and could not move his own body, perhaps alluding to the restrictions recently placed upon the Israelites on the Day of Atonement, when the men were not allowed to perform any work at all, even work necessary for their own sustenance.

If we take the lunar year of twelve months and split it exactly in half, we find that it divides precisely (354 days evenly spaced) between 15 Tishri and 17 Nisan (which we have defined as Easter Sunday). We dwell now in the earthly tents, the tents of the Old Covenant, the tents made of flesh, as St. Paul says, “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Cor 5:1) Many Jewish traditions place the creation of man on 1 Tishri. If we are saved, our future will not be in these corruptible bodies, but in transfigured bodies, as a seed that dies springs forth transformed and bears much fruit. The autumnal calendar (civil) being at antipodes to the vernal calendar (religious) brings this point into focus. We live now in the flesh, but that is not our ultimate destiny. We are to be restored to the glory that we lost with the sin of Adam, and much more besides. Our race was born and within moments entered a state of decline. Christ has truly given us the means to live again, but only if we will die to ourselves by giving ourselves completely to Him. The further coincidence of Good Friday and Ember Friday in September being the only places that have an entire reading from the prophet Hosea further strengthens this connection between these two poles of the calendar, like the north and south poles of a magnet.

The nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost corresponds with 22 Tishri, or Shemini Atzeret, “eighth day of assembly.” Recall that this was also a “miqra’ qodesh”, which means “solemn assembly,” but literally means “call of holiness.” In the gospel for this day, we have an assembly of sorts, to which people are invited, and then subsequently servants are sent to “call” them.

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’ But they made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the streets, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Mt 22:1-14)

While the primary purpose of this parable is to remind us of the rejection of Christ by His own people, this can also be interpreted in the light of the New Testament as a somber reminder that not all those who were called to union with Christ through baptism are chosen for eternal life. Many are called to the Holy Assembly, the Call of Holiness, but few are chosen.