Pentecost Reminder: The Church was Born on Good Friday

It is not traditional to celebrate a person’s birthday weeks after they were born. Likewise, it is not Traditional (as in Catholic Tradition) to celebrate the ‘birth of the Church’ on Pentecost – 52 days after the Church was born on Good Friday, as unanimously taught by the Fathers of the Church.

The practice of Catholics baking birthday cakes for the Church on Pentecost Sunday is lamentable. ‘Homilies’ proclaiming the birth of the Church on Pentecost, like the related birthday cakes, are constructed from a recipe with non-Catholic ingredients. We need more sermons designed to snuff out the birthday candles celebrating a break from Catholic Tradition. The Church was not born on Pentecost.

St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 A.D.) was a bishop who earned the titles of Latin Father and Doctor of the Church. Augustine elucidated:

This teaching of St. Augustine, referring to Adam as a foreshadowing (‘type’) of Christ, in regards to the birth of the Church on Good Friday, is also reflected in the words of other Fathers of the Church, including: Tertullian (d. 223 A.D.), Origen of Alexandria (d. 254 A.D.), St. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397 A.D.), and St. John Chrysostom (d. 407 A.D.). The details of their clear teaching can be found in my previous article, published in 2018: “The Church was NOT Born at Pentecost”.

In his 1943 Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (On the Mystical Body of Christ), Pope Pius XII confirmed: “That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the Holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. … One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based” (n. 28).

This venerable teaching went unchallenged within the Catholic Church up unto the time that the seeds of Modernism started to sprout at the end of the 19th century. Prior to that time, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church were passed on and cherished from generation to generation. Then, the impious Modernists began their vile quest to demolish all the traditions and teachings that Catholics had held as treasured and true.

Puffed up with sinful pride, Modernists continue to hold forth that they, now in modern times, know better than the Fathers of the Church. Thus came the lamentable novelty that the Church was born at Pentecost. In charity, we make allowance for those making birthday cakes who are simply ignorant of the truth, but we must also steadfastly oppose all those who do so in contempt for the traditional teaching of the Church.

Medieval theology is consistent with the Patristic doctrine concerning the birth of the Church from the Savior’s side on the Cross, as evidenced by two related works of art entitled “The Creation of Eve” and “The Birth of Ecclesia.” These instructive teaching tools are found within the pages of the French Gothic “Bible Moralisée” (1225-1249 A.D.), housed in Vienna.

In the Crucifixion medallion we see our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, dead on the Cross. Out of the Sacred Wound in His Side, made by the soldier’s lance, we behold a young woman being born. She is holding a chalice in her hand and wearing a crown on her head. She is being received by God the Father. There are four men witnessing this birth from what appears to be a church building. They are wearing various forms of ecclesiastical garb. In another rendition of this image, there are more than four such men looking on.

The depiction of witnesses dressed in ecclesiastical garments of different kinds can represent the Fathers of the Church and others who testify to the unchanging truth of the birth of the Church at Calvary and the coinciding marriage of Christ to His Bride, the Church (Ecclesia).

In order to properly interpret the image of the Crucifixion, another small medallion is placed just above it. It depicts Eve being taken from the side of Adam. Pairs of animals of God’s creation are looking on. The face of God the Father receiving Eve, is the same as that of Adam, and identical to that of Christ and God the Father in the Crucifixion scene, to teach that Adam was made in “the image of God” (Gen 1:27).

In keeping with Biblical teaching and Catholic Tradition, we are visually instructed by comparing both images that Jesus Christ is the New Adam (cf. Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45). Just as the bride of the first Adam was taken from his side as he slept, so too is the Bride of Christ, the Church, taken from the Second Adam’s Side as He slept the sleep of death.

Violence is done to the Biblical and Traditional Church teaching of Jesus being the Second Adam by those who declare, whether innocently through unawareness or knowingly with malice, that the Church was born at Pentecost. Likewise, the Traditional Catholic belief of the Church as the Bride of Christ is also cast aside by those who disregard Tradition to bake birthday cakes for the Church at Pentecost. The Church, as the Bride of Christ, was born from the side of the Second Adam on Good Friday, from which further sound Traditional Catholic theology follows. This theology is negatively impacted by those who erroneously celebrate the birth of the Church at Pentecost.

In the images of the Church’s birth, the crown on the Bride’s head depicts the Jewish tradition of a crown being upon the head of the bride at an ancient wedding ceremony. The bridegroom would also wear a crown at the marriage ceremony. Jesus wore a Crown of Thorns on Good Friday, His wedding day with the Church.

The Chalice filled with the Precious Blood of Christ, held by the young woman (Ecclesia), hearkens back to the Wedding Feast of Cana, where Our Lord miraculously changed water into wine. Providing for the wine at a Jewish wedding was the responsibility of the bridegroom. The New Testament frequently refers to Jesus (the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity) as the Bridegroom (cf. Matt. 9:15, 25:1-13; Mark 2:19-20; Luke 5:34-35; John 3:29; Apoc./Rev. 18:23), His Bride being the Church (cf. Eph. 5:22-32; Apoc./Rev. 19:7-9, 21:9-14). In the Old Testament, the covenant relationship between God and His people, sealed with the blood of animals, is also referred to in terms of a marriage (cf. Isa. 50:1, 54:5-10, 62:4-5; Jer. 2:1-2,32, 3:6-10,20, 31:31-34; Ezech. 16:8-34, 59-60; Osee/Hos. 1:2, 2:7, 14-20, 9:1; Joel 1:8).

In some icons depicting the Wedding Feast at Cana, both the Bride and Bridegroom are both crowned, as at Eastern Rite weddings. In this version, only the bride is crowned. The bridegroom here is not crowned, to emphasize that Jesus Christ is the Bridegroom, uniting Himself to His Bride, the Church. This icon not only reveals the mystery of Christ’s blessing of earthly marriage, it also reveals the mystery of the heavenly marriage of Christ and the Church, of which earthly marriage is an image.

At Cana, when the Blessed Mother Mary implicitly asked Jesus to miraculously provide more wine, He responded: “My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). The “hour” of marriage with His Bride would not be until Good Friday. His “hour” would be “at hand” on Holy Thursday at the First Mass, with Good Friday in mind (Luke 22:14; John 13:1, 17:1). As such, at the Last Supper, Jesus Christ established the New and Eternal Covenant in His Blood. The next day, Good Friday, the Sacrifice would be consummated.

At the moment that Jesus died on the Cross, Scripture tells us that “the veil of the Temple was rent in two, from the top even to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent” (Matt. 27:51). Catholic teaching has traditionally interpreted the moment of Jesus’ Death as the end of the Old Covenant. In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII wrote: “And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the Blood of Jesus Christ” (n. 29).

Pius XII continues, “St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of Our Lord, said there ‘was effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom’” (ibid.). Temple sacrifices were now replaced by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, an unbloody re-presentation of the Lamb of God’s once-for-all Sacrifice on Calvary. Similarly, Pope Benedict XIV wrote in Ex Quo: “The first consideration is that the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law were abrogated by the coming of Christ and that they can no longer be observed without sin after the promulgation of the Gospel” (n. 61). People who participate in ‘Seder meals’ are thus put on notice to cease this non-Catholic practice.

Returning to Mystici Corporis Christi, we read further: “With the rending of the veil of the temple, it happened that the Paraclete’s gifts, which heretofore had descended only on the fleece, that is on the people of Israel, fell copiously and abundantly (while the fleece remained dry and deserted) on the whole earth, that is on the Catholic Church, which is confined by no boundaries of race or territory” (n. 31). Jesus had warned the Jews: “Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof” (Matt. 21:43).

Given all of the perennial magisterial Church teaching and Biblical evidence that converge on this matter, it is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the voices of modern times presenting the novel concept that the Old Covenant was never abrogated. The tearing of this massive curtain – said to be four inches thick, 60 feet in height, and 30 feet in width – from top to bottom could only have been done by the Hand of God.

At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is an unbloody re-presentation of Calvary, the priest, acting in persona Christi (“in the Person of Christ”) miraculously transubstantiates bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ. As such, in persona Christi, priests are said to be ‘married to the Church.’ In union with the Church, the Bride of Christ, seen holding out the Chalice in the Crucifixion medallion, the priest offers to God the Father the Chalice of the Precious Blood of Christ as a new and eternal (marriage) covenant in atonement for our sins, as he pronounces the words of Consecration over the wine:

(For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the New and Eternal Testament: the Mystery of Faith: Which shall be shed for You and for Many unto the Remission of Sins.)

Thus, we have reflected upon various theological truths contained in the Medieval artwork that are integral to the teachings of the Church Fathers that the Church, as the Bride of Christ, was born on Good Friday from the wounded Side of Christ, the Bridegroom. Those who refer to Pentecost as the birthday of the Church are likely to deny one or more of these and related truths.

Of the birth of Eve in the Garden of Eden, with a reference to Good Friday, Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich, a religious sister and an acclaimed mystic, described the following vision (available online here): “… I saw Adam reclining on his left side, his left hand under his cheek. God sent a deep sleep on him and he was rapt in vision. Then from his right side, from the same place in which the side of Jesus was opened by the lance, God drew Eve. I saw her small and delicate. But she quickly increased in size until full grown. She was exquisitely beautiful.” Mystics are typically dismissed by Modernists as not being credible. Yet it was a vision by Sister Emmerich that led to the discovery of the house of Our Lady and Saint John in Ephesus.

In an all-out attack on the Biblical belief that there was an actual Adam and Eve, we have the so-called ‘theory’ of evolution. The Godless secular dogma of ‘evolution’ was promoted by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of the Species (1859). This work of atheistic fantasy denied the Biblical belief that there was an actual Adam and Eve, created in the image and likeness of God. A Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (d. 1955) later wrote a book promoting evolution entitled The Phenomenon of Man in which he abandoned literal interpretations of the Book of Genesis, including the existence of Adam and Eve. The unproven evolutionary hypothesis provided a foundation for Communist movements all over the world. Our Lady of Fatima had warned that: “Russia would spread her errors throughout the world.” One of those foundational errors of Russian Communism is evolution.

To embrace evolution is to part ways with Adam and Eve. This leads to doing away with believing in the truths of the Bible and perennial Catholic Church teaching, which in turn can lead souls to accept the non-Catholic belief espoused by most Protestants that the Church was born at Pentecost. Eventually, evolution leads to the Communist ideal of disbelief in the existence of Almighty God.

Modernists embrace the idea of evolution, especially the evolution of dogma. Pope St. Pius X explains in his 1907 Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On the Doctrines of the Modernists): “…Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path; that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next” (n. 39). In Pascendi, the saintly Pontiff defines Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies” (ibid.). While implying that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith would be lost throughout the world, Our Lady of Fatima gave us hope when she said: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved in Portugal etc.”

Be assured that the multitude of uninformed Catholics that have joined the Modernist and Protestant voices in celebrating the birthday of the Church at Pentecost do not outweigh the Traditional teaching to which the Fathers of the Church testified from the beginning. Such deviation from authentic Catholic doctrine is not a slight matter. If one accepts a single break with Catholic Tradition, it can have dire consequences leading to rejecting the dogmas of the One True Church founded by Christ. One is not free to pick and choose, as in a cafeteria, what Traditional Church teaching they choose to believe in.

After the appearance of my 2018 article, which demonstrates the fallacy of believing the Church was born on Pentecost, a reader wrote to disagree, saying that he was in possession of a book written by Rev. Francis Spirago written in the year 1900, entitled The Catechism Explained, which stated: “Pentecost is the birthday of the Church.” I also have that book. The sentence in question, which appears on page 230 of a 744-page tome, is a mere assertion without supporting evidence. Moreover, the subtitle of that book is: “An Exhaustive Exposition of the Christian Religion, with Special Reference to the Present State of Society and the Spirit of the Age.” No wonder Pope St. Pius X had to write Pascendi in 1907. Modernism existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and has become even more virulent today.

You can’t trust every catechism to be good, nor can you expect every recipe for a birthday cake to be good. Pentecost birthday cakes have ALL the wrong ingredients EVERY time. Key ingredients that are missing from a Pentecost birthday cake for the Church are respect for Church Tradition and adherence to the perennial teachings of the Fathers of the Church. This is a recipe for disaster – theological and spiritual devastation.

We conclude with this quote from The Oath Against Modernism prescribed by Pope St. Pius X: “I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the Apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the Apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.”

Always remember my Three R’s of Modernism: Recognize it; Refute it; and Return to Tradition.

Why did the resurrecton of the saints occur on Good Friday, at the moment of Christ's death and not Easter Sunday? [51] And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent. [52] And the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, [53] And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many. [54] Now the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, having seen the earthquake, and the things that were done, were sore afraid, saying: Indeed this was the Son of God. [55] And there were there many women afar off, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: Matthew Chapter 27.

Note the statement "coming out of the tombs after his resurrection" and a fuller examination will show the significance of this. The Greek word for church is ekklēsia meaning in its most basic sense a called-out assembly which is even used for lawful civil assembly,[1] and in the spiritual sense it is used of Israel in the wilderness,[2] yet we are dealing here with the spiritual and visible body called the church which Christ purchased with His won sinless shed blood. [3]

And while this is thankfully true, and some believe that the church began at Jesus death, yet its formal functional beginning actually awaited His resurrection with the pouring out of the Spirit and gifts upon all believers thereof, and offices, without which there would be no formal functioning NT (New Testament) church, which consists of blood-bought souls with spiritual gifts and offices:

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8)

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (1 Corinthians 12:12-15)

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:20-22)

Thus the formal functional NT church awaited the pouring out of the Spirit with the spiritual gifts and offices, without which it could not function as commanded as in preaching the gospel and ministering as intended.

Thus while the Lord commanded the gospel to be preached, yet He commanded that the disciples await the pouring out of the Spirit and gifts thereof:

And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. (Luke 24:46-49)

For (as shown with a remarkable confluence of texts) while Christ finished providing the expiation for sin needed for the way into the holy of holies to be opened, which aforetime was not[4][5] (although God forgave sin in recognition of what Christ would provide, which the O.T. sacrificial system represented,[6] and which opening was the tearing of the heavy veil of the temple being supernaturally torn rent in two from the top to the bottom, and with earthquakes,[7] yet the promised pouring out of the Holy Spirit and gifts upon all believers awaited the Lord s glorification and resurrection. [8]

Thus we read,

But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:7-13)

“The “gift of Christ” is that pouring out of the Spirit which the disciples were told to wait for in Jerusalem, which about 120 realized, (Acts 1,2) and was preceded by the Lord descending into the “lower part do the earth,” releasing souls who were comforted in Abraham’s Bosom,[9] also called Paradise, [10] but could not yet enter the holy of holies which believers would have immediate access to (as shown above).

And by the Spirit the Lord also preached unto the disobedient spirits in prison (Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water: 1 Peter 3:19,20) which was that of declaring that in rejecting Noah then they in essence rejected Christ.

And while He was descended, the Lord released all the OT believers (“led captivity captive) to Heaven, and thus it was only “after his resurrection” that OT believers “went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. “(Matthew 27:53)

And having released all in Paradise/Abraham’s Bosom and ascended up to Heaven, Paradise is now called the “third Heaven.”[11]

And being resurrected and glorified, the Lord, as promised, poured out the “gift of Christ” - the Spirit and with gifts, upon all believers beginning at Pentecost. Thus the words of Peter:

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:33)

And the same heart-purifying regenerating faith by the Spirit was realized by the Gentiles who believed:

To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. (Acts 10:43)

And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:7-9)

Thus while the church can be called an assembly, the formal functional beginning of the NT church awaited the resurrection of Christ and the pouring out of the gifts thereof and offices.

For this brings us back to Ephesians 4:9-12) again, Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: (Ephesians 4:9-12)

Footnotes

[1] But if ye enquire any thing concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. (Acts 19:39)

[2] This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: (Acts 7:38)

[3] Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

[4] The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: (Hebrews 9:8)

[5] For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (Hebrews 10:4)

[6] For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. (Hebrews 10:1)

[7] Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. (Matthew 27:50)

[8] He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:38-39)

[9] And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; (Luke 16:22)

[10] And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23:43)

[11] How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (2 Corinthians 12:4)

However the NT church that began cannot be the Catholic church of today (or its traditional sects) since distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).

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