The Church celebrates when the Holy Spirit descended on Pentecost.
Pentecost falls fifty days after Easter Sunday marking the end of the Easter season. The Greek word pentecoste means fiftieth day.
For nine days, since Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven, the Apostles had been hiding in fear and praying to God. On the tenth day, The Holy Spirit descended on the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and other followers of Jesus in the upper room.
The Third Person of the Holy Trinity empowered and emboldened them to come out from hiding and spread the Gospel. Over 3000 people were baptized on that first Pentecost, marking the beginning of the Church.
The Holy Spirit continues to guide and unify the Church while inspiring and encouraging Catholics today.
Pentecost in 2 Minutes:
A Jewish feast takes on a new meaning for Christians:
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Acts 2: 1-4
A reversal of the Tower of Babel and the Golden Calf:
The Lord descends as fire in the New and Old Testaments:
On the day when we celebrate the memorial of the Church’s birth, we want to express heartfelt gratitude to God for this twofold, and ultimately one, witness, which has involved the great family of the Church since the day of PentecoToday we are celebrating the great Solemnity of Pentecost. If, in a certain sense, all the liturgical solemnities of the Church are important, Pentecost is uniquely so. This is because, having reached the 50th day, it marks the fulfilment of the event of the passover, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus through the gift of the Spirit of the Risen One. In the past few days the Church has prepared us for Pentecost with her prayer, with her repeated and intense invocation to God to obtain a fresh outpouring upon us of the Holy Spirit. The Church has thus relived all that happened at her origins, when the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room of Jerusalem “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”
Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, June 12, 2011
Celebrating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit:
The Holy Spirit is ferocious and dangerous:
On that day, the Holy Trinity is fully revealed. Since that day, the Kingdom announced by Christ has been open to those who believe in him: in the humility of the flesh and in faith, they already share in the communion of the Holy Trinity. By his coming, which never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the “last days,” the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated. We have seen the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith: we adore the indivisible Trinity, who has saved us.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 732
We need the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us:
You have been given a unique manifestation of the Holy Spirit:
The mysterious center of our being:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Catholic Sisters in Africa:
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