Homily — Pentecost, 2003

Fr. Timothy W. Castor

Just as Easter replaces the Jewish feast of Passover in the Christian calendar, Pentecost also replaces a Jewish holiday – the Feast of Weeks – Shavuot in Hebrew. This was one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (along with Passover and the Feast of Booths), and it was instituted by God at Mount Sinai to be the occasion when the Hebrew people would celebrate the early harvest, bringing their first fruits of figs and grapes as a thanksgiving offering to God in Jerusalem. There is a span of exactly seven weeks between Passover and the Feast of Weeks – seven times seven being an expression of supreme perfection – 49 days, with the feast itself falling on the fiftieth day. This fact is what gives the day its Greek name "Pentecost," a word which means "fifty".

This was a one-day feast, unlike Passover and Booths which both lasted a week. And, unlike the other two pilgrimage feasts, Pentecost had no rituals based in the home. You might remember that Passover has the beautiful seder meal with its symbolic foods (the meal Jesus was sharing with his disciples when he instituted the Eucharist); and during Succoth, the Feast of Booths, families build little temporary huts in which they take their meals. The ceremony for Pentecost, however, consisted only in a solemn procession of the first-fruits into the Temple where they were offered to the Lord. By the time of Jesus, however, this agricultural celebration took on a deeper meaning. Jewish scholars calculated that, between the Passover in Egypt and the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai there was a span of seven weeks. And so, even though this is never mentioned in Scripture, Pentecost became a celebration of the Torah—the Law—and especially of that moment in history when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on the holy mountain engraved in tablets of stone.

It’s significant, therefore, that God should choose this day on which to give the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is through the Spirit that God’s grace – divine life and power – comes into the Church and into the souls of the baptized. Grace supercedes the Old Law and perfects it. Grace is the new law of love – the law of the Spirit – engraved, not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts! The people of Israel was formed into a covenant community through the giving of the Law. The new Israel – the Church – is formed and united by the Holy Spirit. That is why Pentecost is called the birthday of the Church.

The book of Acts says that on the day of Pentecost the disciples were all together in one place. We assume that this was the upper room, since it says earlier that that’s where they were waiting after the Ascension of Jesus. But it makes more sense if we place them, not in the upper room, but in the Temple courts. Why? Well, it says that a large crowd of Jews from every nation under heaven were in Jerusalem and that they heard the sound of the Holy Spirit falling upon the disciples. Where would they be? In the Temple area, of course, celebrating the Feast, offering their first-fruits to the Lord. It’s likely that the disciples were there, too, participating in the ceremony and trying to blend in to the crowd.

And so, in the midst of this ancient liturgy of thanksgiving for the firstfruits and commemoration of the Law; the firstfruits of the Spirit (of which St. Paul speaks – the promise of salvation) is poured into human souls; and a new law of love, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is given, not just to one nation, but to the whole world.

A few years later, the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed and the Hebrew Pentecost ceremony would cease. But the Church of Jesus Christ – One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic – would continue to observe this feast year by year as a special celebration of God, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul calls the Church the Body of Christ: "For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body," he says. We are the members of this Body, Jesus Christ is the Head. But every living body must have a soul – the principle by which it lives and grows and moves; the principle by which it can become fruitful. Our Catholic Tradition teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Mystical Body of Christ—the Soul of the Church. He it is who gives the Church life, growth and fruitfulness; he causes the Church to move throughout the world spreading the message of salvation. He is the principle of unity – the binding force – between the various members, and between the members and Christ the Head.

But the Holy Spirit is more than just the Soul of the Church – giving life in an abstract and general sense. He is the supernatural Life of each individual believer as well. When the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples at Pentecost, he entered into each heart and mind, renewing them in grace and filling them with divine life. As each man, woman and child is baptized, the Holy Spirit enters that soul and a rebirth takes place, filling that soul – your soul, my soul – with the power and love of God.

For this reason, today we do not merely commemorate a past event, but an ongoing reality in the Church. The Spirit is living and active, and Pentecost happens every day. May the Lord renew our hearts and minds in his Holy Spirit and fill us with his gifts. Listen to the words of Saint Gregory the Great:

Think, beloved brethren, and meditate on the greatness of this feast of the coming of the Holy Spirit which we are celebrating. In the Incarnation of the Son of God he took our flesh; but in the coming of the Holy Spirit men received God. In the mystery of the Incarnation God became man. In the mystery which we are celebrating today men became like God by adoption. For which reason, if we do not wish to remain in carnal death, let us love the Spirit which gives us life.