'Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread (the Passover), in the feast of weeks, and in that of tabernacles. [Dt 16.16] . . The feast of unleavened bread represents the state of beginners, who should celebrate the Passover in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth [cf. 1 Cor 5.8], and eat the Lamb with wild lettuce [cf. Ex 12.8], the bitterness of their sins. . . The feast of weeks, marked by the offering of two new loaves from the first fruits to the Lord, represents the state of proficients whose inner man is renewed from day to day [cf. 2 Cor 4.16], who offer the Lord the new loaves of purity in mind and body. The feast of tabernacles, or "tent-dwelling", represents the state of the perfect, who as Isaiah says, sit in the tabernacles of confidence [Is 32.18]. Balaam, in the book of Numbers, spoke of these tents as beautiful as woody valleys [Num 24.5-6], the humility of poverty which offers shade from the heat of temporal things; and as watered gardens near the rivers, the infusion of grace which cools the thirst of carnal concupiscence.'

St. Anthony of Padua