1. The Holy Spirit, Pentecost and all the sacraments have special relationship. For me at this time of the year Holy Orders especially.
On May 25th 27 years ago I was ordained, I floated all day. On Sunday my first mass and Homily as a Deacon, which also was Pentecost, had my heart pumping as if to literally burst out of my chest. Topping it off, I had my first Baptism that after noon. I was high on Grace for days.
In my EAGERNESS to be quickly involved, but also in my lack of ministerial SAVVY, it wasn’t too much later that I decided to go visit a parishioner in the hospital. In that eagerness, I drove down to the hospital and I made it up to her room on the 6th floor where I found the door shut. In my uneasiness then, I could not make my self go in for Fear of not knowing what to SAY or DO. It was at that point that the initial influx of Grace of Ordination ran LOW. I turned around, got onto the elevator and got back into my car and started driving home.
In that moment I came to understand there was a whole lot more to the Holy Spirit and how he TRANSFORMS our lives. He gives grace to set you on FIRE indeed. I felt it all through formation and ordination, but then we need to ask for the Grace to GROW and also SUSTAIN us for the long haul. That’s where the beauty of PRAYER, RITUAL, FEAST DAYS, SACRAMENTS and BIBLICAL knowledge that underlie our desire to Serve God come into play. Even in Ordination, we take baby steps. In PRAYER that day, the Spirit came thru, he made me promise my self that I would go back the next day and get the job done. I did.
2. The Jewish festival of SHAVUOT or ‘Feast of Weeks’ and our term “Pentecost” have a religious relationship. Shavuot was the 2nd of the three most important annual Pilgrimage feasts in the Jewish calendar. #1 was Passover / Unleavened Bread / or Jewish Pesach (Lamb) and # 3 was Sukkot (Feast of Booths or Tabernacles) (It concerns the time wandering in the Desert).
Shavuot occurred on the 50th day or the day after seven weeks or 49 days (hence term “feast of weeks’) after Passover. We use the Greek word Pentecost meaning fiftieth. Historically, Shavuot was first a feast of thanksgiving where the first-fruits of the barley crop were offered to God. Later on, Shavuot, after the PASSOVER feast was established, became the day the Israelites celebrated an important component of their Covenant with God. They celebrated that not only did Moses get the Law on Mount Sinai, but more directly Shavuot commemorated the day God, through Moses, gave the Torah to the ENTIRE NATION. In these three acts of God , the Passover , Shavuot and the Sukkot , they fully became God’s special people. On Shavuot they would remember this Election as Chosen People and to GROW in knowledge of His plan for them and to SUSTAIN this identity by living the LAW.
3. It was very fitting that the NEW PASSOVER had just taken place: Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. In the light that the CHRISTIAN EASTER replaces for Christians the Jewish Pasch, it also MUST be seen that the Jewish Shavuot was the forerunner feast day for the Christian Pentecost. In Shavuot, Moses was celebrated as the Law giver to the Israelite nation in the Old Testament; now, we in the new Pentecost, celebrate the Apostles who became the Church when they received the Holy Spirit in the upper room earlier, and on the 50th day are seen as giving the ENTIRE WORLD the new law; GIVEN by Christ, and CONFIRMED by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s also neat to understand how the Christian faith MEANT for the ENTIRE WORLD, flows out of the belief system of the ENTIRE JEWISH NATION. In Jesus’ time, all Jewish men, not legitimately impeded, were expected to come to Jerusalem, to the temple, for the feast. Thousands of Jews from outside of Palestine journeyed to Jerusalem, (hence the reference to the people being Parthians, Medes or Elamites in the Gospel). So the ‘city of peace’ was full to overflowing. The ENTIRE NATION was present together again, based on the yearly call to celebrate God having given them the Law by which they were to live. But this time as they heard the Apostles (ie church) give the NEW LAW to live by. It was from there they went home and with the Apostles as they went out, that began the mission to take the Gospel of Jesus to every corner of the earth.
5. My failure to visit that sick person that day in the hospital may seem trivial to you. I couldn’t do it. Yet for me it was the GREAT day to Remember. I realized how important the Holy Spirit is to EVERY GOOD WORK and to living EVERY LETTER of God’s Truth. Moses had peals of thunder and lightning flashes on the mountain, the Apostles had the strong wind and a flaming tongue rest on their heads, I can still feel that pounding heart; but the most important sign that we need to clue into is the superhuman COURAGE that caused the Apostles to proclaim the Faith and the people to hear the word, spoken to them in a way they could understand God’s love.
6. Today on this Festival of Pentecost, let us each THANK God for His Covenantal love: 1st in having Saved us, 2nd in having given us His law to live by and 3rdly in having chosen us to be apart of His mission. Then let us pray to the Holy Spirit for the COURAGE to live and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a world in desperate need of the TRUTH.
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