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Today is that Feast of St Matthias and the Communion Antiphon is a text from the Gospel according to St Matthew (19: 28).

Vos qui secuti estis me, sedebitis super sedes,
iudicantes duodecim tribus Israel, dicit Dominus.

You who have followed me, shall sit upon thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel, says the Lord.

The promise of future glory is made in the context of having followed Christ. Our reception of Holy Communion is a pledge of future glory, as the antiphon “O Sacrum Convivium” reminds us. It is also at the same time, our commitment to follow Christ. Of course, the apostles, and perhaps St Matthias too, were not very good followers – they understood little and deserted Christ in his Passion. Consolation perhaps for us in our weakness. Yet we ought not to forget how they were transformed on the day of Pentecost, which we celebrated on Sunday, into fearless witnesses, following Christ, even to death, in imitation of their Lord and Master. There is hope yet for us, that we may be better followers, for the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us too in the sacraments of initiation.

This week’s Introit (i.e. Entrance Antiphon) is presents us with lovely images of God – protector, refuge, saviour, support. It is taken from Psalm 30: 3, 4.

Esto mihi in Deum protectorem, et in locum refugii, ut salvum me facias :
quoniam firmamentum meum, et refugium meum es tu :
et propter nomen tuum dux mihi eris, et enutries me.

(Be to me a protecting God, and a place of refuge, to save me;
for you are my support and my refuge;
and for the sake of your name, you will be a leader for me and feed me.)

We can quickly see why this text has been chosen as an entrance chant for the Mass. Christ leads us. He is our “dux”, as the processional cross borne aloft reminds us. He is our crucified leader who leads by his example of love and he feeds us with his body at Mass. This is underlined by the musical interpretation that the anonymous composer has given to this text. It mostly remains in the line of FA. But at the words “et propter nomen tuum”, the melody surges from an octave from DO, leading to “dux” and a triple repercussion on “mihi”, before a swift descent to “enutries” with a delightful ornament that allows us to savour the word and prolong it on our lips. We say emphatically to our Lord, “You will be a leader for me and will feed me!”

Do we follow the leader?

We now enter the “Tempus per annum” or “Time through the year”, taking up the annual cycle in the Sixth Week.

In the Paschal cycle comprising Lent and Easter, the Church reads the history of Israel and her relationship with God and sees in it a type or foreshadowing of that between the Church and God. In Lent, at the Office of Readings, we read of the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness in order to remind ourselves of our need for conversion. At the Easter Vigil, the crossing of the Red Sea is always read as the Church sees this as a symbol of the passage of Christ and also of our passage from death to life in our sharing in the Paschal mystery through baptism.

It seems fitting that in this period between the Easter season and the imminent celebration of Corpus Christi, this week’s Communion Antiphon recalls the wandering of Israel in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The text comes from Psalm 77: 29, 30.

Manducaverunt, et saturati sunt nimis, et desiderium eorum attulit eis Dominus :
non sunt fraudati a desiderio suo.

(They ate and were fully satisfied; the Lord gave them all that they desired;
they were not deprived of their wants.)

Now, Psalm 77 is a summary of salvation history. The immediate context of this text is the murmuring of Israel against God for the lack of food, to which God responds by sending quails in the evening and manna in the morning. And so they ate and were satisfied. But, as the psalm continues, even as the food was in their mouths, God’s indignation “rose up against them” and he “slew the fattest of them, and overthrew the choice men of Israel”.

God satisfies our wants, especially with the gift of his Son in the Eucharist. But as St Paul warns us, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11: 27). We should not be too quick to dismiss the thought of an “indignant” God as merely a reflection of an archaic Old Testament mentality.

It seems evident that the Church, in selecting this text for the Communion antiphon, means to remind us of the overflowing love of God that asks for our response. Our receiving our Lord in Holy Communion is the renewal of the betrothal of God with his people. This astonishing fact, that God has come to us, should not become mundane. We need to be true to the act we perform and the promise we receive in Holy Communion.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die” (John 6: 48-50)

Israel was castigated for its murmuring, lack of fidelity and for being stiff-necked. And what of us today, who have eaten and have been satisfied so much more than Israel in the wilderness?

We have arrived at the end of the glorious 50 days of Easter with today’s great feast of Pentecost. The sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus is replete with beautiful images of the action of the Holy Spirit – he melts the frozen, warms the chill; he is coolness in the heat, solace in the midst of woe.

But it is to the Communion antiphon that we turn to in order to see what we are to take to heart today.

Factus est repente de caelo sonus advenientis spiritus vehementis, ubi erant sedentes, alleluia:
et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto, loquentes magnalia Dei, alleluia, alleluia.

(And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, where they were sitting, alleluia: and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking the great works of God, alleluia, alleluia.)

The text is a recension of Acts 2: 2 and 4, part of the First Reading (Acts 2:1-11). The melody paints a dramatic picture of the sound of the mighty wind, but that should not distract us from the words its underlines: “loquentes magnalia Dei”. As we receive our Lord, body, soul and divinity in the gift of the Eucharist, we are reminded by this chant that the gift we have received is not only for us. We are to speak of the “magnalia Dei”, great works of God.

Now, in order to speak of the great works of God, evidently we have first to recognise them in our lives and the lives of those around us. This calls for attentiveness. We should note well that the Holy Spirit came upon those gathered in prayer “ubi erant sedentes”, where they were sitting. In other words, attentiveness is not attained by ceaseless activity!

The distractions (and by that token the inattentiveness) of modern life are often lamented. Yet are we not also guilty of restlessly seeking diversion and entertainment? From whom or what are we hiding? In her Dialogue, St Catherine of Siena reveals to us that it is only when we see our destitution that we can see the overwhelming love God has for us. What do we wish not to see? And in so doing, have we overlooked the great works of God?