Gomes emerges from the hallway in a gray suit and yellow tie. He briefly stops to speak with some of the guests before lighting polished candelabras on the tea table with extra-long matches. An arrangement of holly and apples forms a centerpiece between them.

The weekly tea also remains a comforting constant in Gomes busy schedule, he says. Regardless of his travels and appointments during the week, he always plans to be at Sparks House for tea.

“Gomes is more likely to be home on Wednesday than he is to be at Memorial Church on Sunday,” he joked about himself.

Gomes has been serving Wednesday tea since 1974, when he became Pusey minister in Memorial Church. The tradition of Wednesday teas predates his tenure, though. When he came to Harvard as a graduate student in 1965, the dean of the Divinity School also hosted a weekly tea on Wednesday.

University faculty members and administrators would often host social events offering “free eats” for students, he remembers.

“If you were a poor, impoverished graduate student, you could wander from place to place,” he says.

Gomes perpetuated the tradition of Wednesday tea himself when he moved into Sparks House in 1974.

“I decided that I would resurrect the tea that I had enjoyed,” Gomes explains.

Excepting Wednesdays at Sparks House, only a weekly tea at Lowell House and a semi-monthly tea at Adams House remain today.

Today, guests find new friends and common interests among jam cookies and plush armchairs. Gomes enjoys moving among their distinct conversations and different languages.

“Two Czechs discovered themselves here,” he remembers, “and they started nattering on.”

Adriana P. Dakin, a second-year student at the Kennedy School of Government, says she comes to Wednesday tea to enlarge her social circle.

“This is where I meet people from all over the Harvard campus,” she says.

Guests regularly include undergraduates, graduate students, professors and visitors to Harvard. Together, they reflect characteristic Cantabrigian erudition and eclecticism.

“Whatever question about anything you have, you come here and you go to Peter. He can point you toward someone who’s an expert in the field,” says Marc Callis, a frequent Wednesday tea guest and history student at the Extension School.