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What is Pentecost?

SPRING 2022

On June 5, Catholics will celebrate Pentecost. In preparation, Archways asked Fr. Ryan Muldoon to tell us about the significance of the day.

FIFTY DAYS AFTER JESUS' RESURRECTION on Easter Sunday, and 10 days after Ascension Thursday marks His ascent into Heaven, the Church celebrates Pentecost. Sometimes referred to as the birthday of the Church, Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the Church, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, [the apostles] 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

It was the Feast of Weeks for the Jewish people, and we hear in Acts that there were “devout Jews from every nation” in Jerusalem. This was one of three annual Jewish pilgrimage festivals, when Jews traveled to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the temple. The Feast of Weeks, called Shavuot in Hebrew, came to be known by its Greek name, Pentecost, meaning “50th.” In the Book of Deuteronomy (16:9-10), God commands the Jewish people to keep sacred the seven weeks after Passover. After those 49 days, the 50th day – Pentecost – was to be a day of celebration. Similarly, Pentecost is celebrated by Christians 50 days after the solemnity of Jesus’ Resurrection.

The Jewish Feast of Weeks occurred in the spring in Jerusalem, and during the festival, the first fruits of the year’s grain harvest would be offered to God in the temple. Jewish tradition connects Pentecost with the day that God gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai; God’s presence was said to have descended upon Mount Sinai in the form of fire (Exodus 19). Jewish tradition also holds that, when God gave the Law to Moses, all the Jews assembled heard the Law in their own native language. 

Likewise, when the Holy Spirit descended, Acts tells us that all those gathered heard the apostles speaking to them in their own native language. As the Preface at Mass on Pentecost Sunday recalls, the Holy Spirit, “as the Church came to birth, opened to all peoples the knowledge of God and brought together the many languages of the earth in profession of the one faith.”

When God came upon Mount Sinai under the appearance of fire, he made the Jews one community, one nation, with the giving of the Law. Similarly, at the Christian Pentecost, the presence of God – the Holy Spirit – also comes down in tongues of flame that come to rest on the heads of the apostles. When God’s presence comes to earth, a new community is born: the Christian Church. Just as God promised at Mount Sinai to remain with the Jewish people, so the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church at Pentecost ensures the Spirit’s continual presence in the life of the Church and her members.
 

Rev. Ryan A. Muldoon, STL
Parochial Vicar
St. Patrick’s Church, Yorktown Heights
Adjunct Professor
St. Joseph’s Seminary, Yonkers