PODCAzT 60: Pentecost customs; St. Ambrose on the dew of the Holy Spirit

as it is in the older, Traditional Roman Calendar. This is the fifth PODCAzT for the Pentecost Octave.  Thanks to your feedback for the last couple days.  Stats dropped yesterday, so this may be the last one. Today we will look at some customs associated with Pentecost, very beautiful.  These customs informed the rhythm of people’s lives for centuries. Then we will drill into the image of the dew of the Holy Spirit (which some bishops sadly think people are too thick to understand and therefore want to eliminate the image from liturgical translations…).  To help we enlist the help of a very wise Bishop, the great Ambrose of Milan (+397) who always tried to explain hard things to his people rather than make them out to be too stupid to get the point.  Ambrose wrote a work On the Holy Spirit in which he explains the dew that descended on Gideon’s fleece in the Book of Judges.  So, we will hear Judges 6 and 7 and then Ambrose allegorical commentary.  Fascinating stuff, I can tell you. This reading from Scripture and the patristic commentary, gives you a sense of how some of the Father’s worked with Scripture and how their reflections can be useful for us today. Of course, I have lots of comments along the way. For music, we have an antiphon for Pentecost in Gregorian chant, and a bitter sweet song Dancing at Whitsun, a folk song, which speaks of the rhythm of our lives and the challenges we endure.  There is a Fastasia super Kom, Heiliger Geist BWV 651 by J.S. Bach on the pipe organ, which Holy Church recommends above all other instruments.  We hear a haunting Byzantine Communion for mid-Pentecost, in other words this very week and at the end a real change of pace, which you can listen to yourselves.