The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost stands in the series of “green Sundays” as one of profound consolation. The Church, moving through the long season of growth after Pentecost, places before us the theme of Christ’s power to restore life, both spiritually and bodily. The liturgy leads the faithful to meditate on death, sin, compassion, and resurrection, and to live more fully in charity.

The Epistle: Walking in the Spirit
The Epistle (Galatians 5:25–6:10) exhorts Christians to “walk in the Spirit,” bearing one another’s burdens, persevering in good works, and sowing for the life eternal. St. Paul makes clear that the Christian life is not merely private piety but lived charity, grounded in grace. Dom Prosper Guéranger notes that in the series of late Pentecostal Sundays the Church “insists more and more upon the practical duties of her children, in order that they may not lose the fruit of the divine mysteries now consummated”¹. The teaching is clear: true life in the Spirit manifests itself in fraternal charity and perseverance.

The Gospel: The Raising of the Widow’s Son
The Gospel (Luke 7:11–16) recounts Christ’s raising of the widow’s son at Naim. The scene is one of deep human pathos: a mother, already widowed, is on her way to bury her only son. Christ, moved with compassion, touches the bier and commands, “Young man, I say to thee, arise.” Cornelius a Lapide observes that this miracle is not only a proof of Christ’s divine power but an allegory of the Church: the widow is the Church, mourning her children who have died in sin, until Christ, moved by pity, restores them through His grace².

Leonard Goffine explains in his Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels that this miracle also prefigures the general resurrection: “As Christ called the youth back to life, so will He, at the end of the world, call all the dead from their graves; and as the dead youth arose and spoke, so the sinner raised by absolution must henceforth speak by faith and works of charity”³.

The Introit and Collect: A Cry for Mercy
The liturgy begins with the Introit from Psalm 85: Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and hear me: save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in Thee. This is the cry of the widow of Naim, but also of every sinner who turns in desperation to Christ. The Collect takes up the same note of utter dependence: Let Thy continual pity, O Lord, cleanse and defend Thy Church: and, because without Thee it cannot be safe, let it ever be governed by Thy grace. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen remarks that this prayer perfectly illustrates the truth of Christian life: “Without Christ, the soul is not only in danger but incapable of true life. Like the dead youth, it lies inert until the touch of Christ restores it”⁴.

The Eucharist: Life for the World
The Communion antiphon (John 6:52) recalls Christ’s promise: The bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world. The connection is unmistakable: just as Christ restored natural life to the widow’s son, He now gives supernatural and eternal life through His Flesh in the Eucharist. Benedict Baur comments that this Sunday brings the faithful face to face with the reality of divine compassion: “Christ is moved by our misery; He gives Himself as food, that we may not die. The miracle at Naim points us to the daily miracle of the altar”⁵.

Spiritual Lessons for the Faithful

The spirituality of the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost unfolds in three dimensions:

1. Confidence in Christ’s Compassion: He does not wait to be asked. He sees the widow’s grief, feels pity, and acts. So too, He anticipates us with grace, raising us from death to life.
2. Life of Charity: St. Paul’s exhortation to bear one another’s burdens reminds us that spiritual life is inseparable from love of neighbour.
3. Eucharistic Resurrection: Each Communion is a participation in the resurrection life of Christ, preparing us for the final rising on the Last Day.

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Conclusion

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost brings before us the image of the Church as widow, weeping over her children dead in sin, and of Christ as the Divine Consoler who raises the dead to life. The miracle at Naim is not a distant memory but a living reality, repeated in the confessional and at the altar. Christ speaks to every soul, “Young man, I say to thee, arise,” and in the Eucharist gives the pledge of that eternal life in which death shall be swallowed up in victory.

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Footnotes

1. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year: Time after Pentecost, Book V, trans. Laurence Shepherd (Dublin: James Duffy, 1871), pp. 173–174.
2. Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in Sacram Scripturam: In Lucam, vol. 13 (Paris: Vives, 1876), pp. 120–123.
3. Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year: Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and Holidays (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1880), pp. 626–627.
4. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year, trans. Discalced Carmelite Nuns (London: Burns & Oates, 1964), meditation no. 308.
5. Benedict Baur, The Light of the World: A Course in Catholic Spirituality (St. Louis: Herder, 1954), pp. 482–483.