Today, sisters and brothers, is a glorious day! Our observance of Pentecost is second in importance only to Easter. Yes, Pentecost is more important than Christmas. Sadly, we often do not observe it as if this were the case.
Pentekostos in Greek means fifty. Pentecost, then, is observed fifty days after Easter. Originally Pentecost was (and remains) one of the eight major festivals around which the Jewish religious calendar revolves. The Hebrew name for this celebration is Shauv’ot, which means “weeks”.
For Jews then as now, the first of the three days of Shauv’ot, calculated from the first day of Passover, is fifty days. Because Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient Mediterranean world, Shauv’ot was called Pentecost. Originally a summer harvest festival, in time Shauv’ot became the commemoration of God’s giving Torah through Moses on Mount Sinai.
For observant Jews, Shauv’ot is the time each year to renew one’s acceptance of Torah. It is the time one recommits to adhere to God’s law. This bears some similarity to the renewal of our baptismal promises at Easter.
Far from supplanting or replacing Israel, as Saint Paul observed in his Letter to the Romans, the Church is “a wild olive shoot” grafted onto the olive tree that is Israel. As a result, Christians, according to Paul, “have come to share in the rich root of the olive tree.”1
Therefore, the apostle warns Christians in ancient Rome, not to boast against the natural branches of the tree- not to boast against the Jews. “If you do boast,” he warns, “consider that you do not support the root; the root supports you.”2 This is why, during another period of intense anti-Semitism, Pope Pius XI emphatically insisted “Spiritually, we are Semites.”3 No Law, no Gospel. No Torah, no Pentecost. No Moses, no Jesus. No Israel, no Church.
The reason so many Jews from throughout the known world were present in Jerusalem, was to observe Pentecost. But this event became one much greater than God revealing Torah. The descent of the Holy Spirit, who is now the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence in and for the world! This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the words of the risen Lord in the account of His Ascension found in the previous chapter of Acts that the apostles would give witness to Christ’s resurrection beginning at Jerusalem.4
Just as Christians are not, in essence, a people of the book, as is sometimes supposed, but a people of the resurrected Lord, Jesus is not a new Moses. He is Messiah and Lord as well as God and man.
As God, He is giver of Torah. As man, He is the one- the only one- who fulfills the Law. Jesus accomplished in His own person what neither Israel nor the Church can achieve without Him. The Law is holy, we are not. Christ alone is why we can call the Church “holy.”
Pentecost is reckoned to be the beginning of the Church because it was then the Gospel began to be preached, was received in faith and, as a result, people were baptized. Being verum corpus Christi, Christ’s very Body, extended through time and space the Church is utterly essential for salvation. Without the Church, there is no salvation.
Pentecost, used Under a Creative Commons License
Our Gospel reading comes from the Last Supper Discourse found in Saint John’s Gospel. Obviously, the disciples were distressed about what the Lord was telling them would happen. In light of His impending death, they wondered how might God’s kingdom might be established. The Lord tells them that if they love Him and endeavor to keep His commandments, which is to love each other as He loves them, He will send them an Advocate to remain with them always.
The Holy Spirit, whose mission is not to reveal novel things- this is the stuff of sects and cults- but to continually remind us of all that Jesus taught and guide us deeper into this mystery. As Saint Paul insists in our second reading, you cannot arrive at the truth “Jesus is Lord” apart from it being revealed to you by the Holy Spirit.5
Theologically, mysteries are not things unknown. Instead, they are known because God reveals them. While divine mysteries are not discoverable by reason alone, they are consonant with and even constitutive of reason.
In this sense, a mystery isn’t unknowable as much as endlessly knowable- you will never reach the end because there will always be more to know. That doesn't mean we can't know anything. God has given us reason and revelation, scripture and tradition.
Being the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence in, among, and through us, the Holy Spirit is how the Lord fulfills His promise to remain with the Church always until He returns. Hence, the Holy Spirit does not bear witness to the Holy Spirit but to Jesus Christ, our kyrios and theos, our Lord and our God.6
The descent of the Holy Spirit is the third of the Glorious mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary. Its fruit is God’s love for us. Christ’s love for us is sealed by sending the Spirit as the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise never to abandon His Church. When she is unfaithful, He is ever faithful.
Elsewhere in his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul, reminds members of the Church in Rome, “you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”7 “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” he continues, “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.”8
On this Pentecost, let us reaffirm our commitment to live life in the Spirit. This is life in Christ, it is ecclesial life, the apex of which is what we’re doing here now: Eucharist. Indeed, life in the Spirit is rooted in gratitude. It is rooted in gratitude to God who demonstrated His love for us by giving “his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”9
“We do not pretend that life is all beauty,” Pope Saint John Paul II pointed out. “We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain,” he continued. “But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection.”10
And so, as this Easter season ends, let’s continue to live in the light of Christ’s Paschal Mystery- the mystery of His Death and Resurrection. Let us remember, in season and out, always and everywhere, “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”11
1 Romans 11:17.↩
2 Romans 11:18.↩
3 G.M. Willebrands. Church and Jewish People. Paulist Press, 1992, p. 60. ↩
4 Acts 1:8.↩
5 1 Corinthians 12:3; Matthew 16:17.↩
6 John 20:28.↩
7 Romans 8:9.↩
8 Romans 8:11.↩
9 John 3:16.↩
10 Pope John Paul II. Angelus, 30 November 1986.↩
11 Ibid.↩
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