The Solemnity of Pentecost
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today’s celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost is one with very ancient roots. Saint Bede the Venerable summarizes these roots for us:
On the fiftieth day after the Passover, the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire, accompanied by the sound of a trumpet and thunder and lightning, and with a clear voice he laid out for them the ten commandments of the law. As a memorial of the law he had given, he established a sacrifice to himself from the first-fruits of that year, to be celebrated annually on that day... The law was given on the fiftieth day after the slaying of the lamb, when the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire; likewise on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of our Redeemer, which is today, the grace of the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples as they were assembled in the upper room.[1]
In this we see one of the primary ways God relates with his people, first a foreshadowing and then the completion of the foreshadowing.
Duccio, Pentecost
The number
fifty is also significant for another reason. We can again turn to Saint Bede
for an explanation of the importance of this number:
In the law, the fiftieth year was ordered to be called the year of jubilee, that is, ‘forgiving’ or ‘changed’. During it the people were to remain at rest from all work, the debts of all were to be cancelled, slaves were to go free, and the year itself was to be more notable than other years because of its greater solemnities and divine praises. Therefore, by this number is rightly indicated that tranquility of greatest peace when, as the Apostle says, at the sound of the last trumpet the dead will rise and we shall be changed into glory. Then, when the labours and hardships of this age come to an end, and our debts, that is all our faults, have been forgiven, the entire people of the elect will rejoice eternally in the sole contemplation of the divine vision, and that most longed-for command of our Lord and Saviour will be fulfilled: Be still and see that I am God.[2]
Today’s solemnity of Pentecost then has – at least - a twofold meaning for us: first, the descent of God the Holy Spirit upon his people who will never leave us and, second, the promise of tranquility and greatest peace as we eternally behold the Face of God.
The Lord Jesus established the Church as the means by which we attain salvation. He entrusted the Sacraments to his Church by which he is continually present to his people. It is through the Holy Spirit that the self-offering of Christ to the Father on our behalf is continually made present to us in the Eucharist. What is more, it is the coming of the Holy Spirit, “which never ceases” that “causes the world to enter into the ‘last days,’ the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated.”[3]
The reality of this struggle between what is already and what is not yet regularly plays out in the history of the Church in the holiness and sinfulness of her members. This is why Saint Paul said, “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23).
We know all too well that among the sinners in the Church were and are some of her ministers, as the recent report of the Attorney General of the State of Illinois all too painfully reminded us. While the report really told us nothing we did not already know, reading it was gut-wrenching and the pain of those abused by some ministers of the Church was all too palpable. The Church is to be the spotless Bride of Christ, but some of her ministers have sullied her and brought shame upon her (cf. Revelation 19:8). Their actions are a constant reminder that “the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour” (I Peter 5:8).
Today’s Solemnity of Pentecost is a clear reminder to each of us that we must cooperate with the grace the Holy Spirit pours out upon us to grow in holiness of life. Each of us must resolve anew each day not to sully the Bride of the Lamb. Each of us must cling more closely to Christ until his peace rests securely in our hearts and are we fully purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit (cf. John 20:19; Acts 2:3).
Christ the Lord said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled” (Luke 12:49)! The Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles as “tongues of fire” because
he caused them to be burning with God’s will and preaching about God's kingdom. Fiery tongues they had when with love they preached the greatness of God, that the hearts of heathen men, which were cold through faithlessness and bodily desires, might be kindled to the heavenly commands.[4]
Each of us – and especially the ministers of the Church – need to be burning with this same fire of love; each of us must have the coldness of our hearts driven out from us by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Let us, then, call upon the Lord for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the members of the Church, both priests and laity alike, that we might all resist the enticements of the devil and remain “steadfast in faith” until the Church is brought to her perfection before the Face of her Bridegroom and receive that tranquility of greatest peace (I Peter 5:9). Let us cry out with all our hearts, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth” (cf. Psalm 104:30). Amen.
[1] Saint Bede the Venerable, Sermon for Pentecost. In Eleanor Parker, “Thefiftieth day and ‘the tranquility of greatest peace’: Bede on Pentecost,” A Clerk of Oxford, 14 May 2015.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 732.
[4] Blessed Aelfric of Eynsham, Homily for
Pentecost. In Eleanor Parker, “‘We wurðiað þæs Halgan Gastes tocyme':
An Anglo-Saxon Sermon for Pentecost,” A Clerk of Oxford, 24 May 2015.
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