WHIT SUNDAY.
Pentecost or Whit Sunday extends back to the early days of the Church. From Tertullian, it is plain that the festival was well known and long established. In the Peregrinatio Silviae, we read a detailed account of how the feast was kept in Jerusalem at her visit (385-388). "On the night before Whitsunday the vigil was celebrated in the church of the Anastasis, at which the bishop, according to the usual custom in Jerusalem on Sundays, read the Gospel of the Resurrection, and the customary psalmody was performed. At dawn, all the people proceeded to the principal church (Martyrium) where a sermon was preached and Mass celebrated. About the third hour, when the psalmody was finished, the people singing accompanied the bishop to Sion. There, the passage from the Acts of the Apostles describing the descent of the Holy Ghost was read, and a second Mass was celebrated; after which the psalmody was resumed. Afterwards, the archdeacon invited the people to assemble in the 'Eleona,' from whence a procession was made to the summit of the Mount of Olives. Here, psalms and antiphons were sung, the Gospel was read and the blessing given. After this, the people descended again into the 'Eleona,' where Vespers were sung, and then, with the bishop at their head, proceeded in a solemn procession, with singing, back to the principal church, which was reached towards 8 p.m. At the city gate the procession was met by torch bearers, who accompanied it to the Martyrium. Here, as well as in the Anastasias, to which the people proceeded in turn, and in the chapel of the Holy Cross, the usual prayers, hymns and blessings took place, so that the festival did not conclude until midnight." (Kellner, op. cit., pp. 112-113). In most churches, the principal services were solemn baptism and processions. In some places it was customary to scatter roses from the roof of the church, to recall the miracle of Pentecost. In France, trumpets were blown in church, in memory of the great wind which accompanied the Holy Spirit's descent.