Pentecost Sunday

Pentecost Solemnity     

        On the day of Pentecost when the seven weeks of Easter had come to an end, Christ's Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a divine person: of his fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in abundance. (Ac 2:36) 
       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. (Byzantine liturgy, Pentecost Vespers, Troparion, repeated after communion)

The Holy Spirit - God's gift

"God is Love" (Jn 4:8.16) and love is his first gift, containing all others. "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Rm 5:5) 
        Because we are dead or at least wounded through sin, the first effect of the gift of love is the forgiveness of our sins. The communion of the Holy Spirit (2 Co 13:13) in the Church restores to the baptized the divine likeness lost through sin. 
         He, then, gives us the "pledge" or "first fruits" of our inheritance: the very life of the Holy Trinity, which is to love as "God (has) loved us." This love (the "charity" of 1 Co 13) is the source of the new life in Christ, made possible because we have received "power" from the Holy Spirit. (Ac 1:8) 
       By this power of the Spirit, God's children can bear much fruit. He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear "the fruit of the Spirit: . . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."129 "We live by the Spirit"; the more we renounce ourselves, the more we "walk by the Spirit." (Ga 5:25) 
       Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God "Father" and to share in Christ's grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory. (St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 15,36)

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Pentecost Sunday - Solemnity

Commentary of the day 
Saint Ephrem (c.306-373), Deacon in Syria, Doctor of the Church 
On the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in S. Ephraem Syri, 25, 5, 15, 20, Oxford 1865, p. 95f.

"As the Father has sent me, so I send you"

The apostles were sitting there in the Cenacle, the Upper Room, waiting for the Holy Spirit's coming. Like torches they were present there, ready and waiting to be set alight by the Holy Spirit so as to illumine the whole creation with their teaching... They were there like farm hands carrying seed in their coat pocket waiting for the order to go out and sow. They were there like sailors whose boat is tied up in the harbor of the Son's commandment and who are waiting for the gentle wind of the Spirit. They were there like shepherds who have just received their staff from the Chief Shepherd of the fold and who are waiting for the flock to be divided among them.

«And they began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.» O Cenacle, kneading trough into which has been thrown the leaven leavening the whole world! O Cenacle, mother of all the churches, who have witnessed the miracle of the burning bush (Ex 3). O Cenacle, amazing Jerusalem with a wonder far greater than that of the burning furnace which astonished the inhabitants of Babylon (Dn 3). The fire of the furnace burned all those around it but protected those in its midst; the flames of the Cenacle gather together those outside who wish to see them while  bringing comfort to those who receive them. O fire, whose coming is word, whose silence is light! O fire, establishing hearts in thankfulness!...

Some people, who were opposed to the Holy Spirit, said: «These people have had too much new wine; they are drunk.» Indeed, you speak truly! However, it isn't as you think it is. It isn't wine from the vineyard they have drunk. It is a new wine that flows from heaven: a wine newly pressed on Golgotha. The apostles caused it to be drunk and thus they inebriated all creation. This is wine that was pressed on the cross.

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CONGREGATION FOR THE CLERGY

PENTECOST SUNDAY

In the fiftieth day after Easter, the Apostles found themselves ‘all in one room’ in the Cenacle (Cfr. Acts 2:1) for the Jewish fest of Pentecost, which is the anniversary of the donation of God’s Law, the Torah, to Moses on Mount Sinai.  None of them could possibly have foretold that, exactly on this day, the Lord would have fulfilled the promise that Jesus made many times regarding the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.  (cfr. Jn 14:16)

We are also called to remember that, along with the prodigious signs that occurred in that upper room, ‘there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven’ who could hear them each speaking in his own language, ‘of the mighty acts of God.’(Acts 2:5,11) 

The Holy Spirit is essentially a great new gift, a new Law, that God made first and foremost to those that had persevered until the end.  The Holy Spirit is a gift of grace that isn’t destined for a singular ethnic group, but is like the air, it must becommunicated to all men on the earth because if ‘you take away their breath, they die.’ (Cfr. Ps 103:29)

The meaning of the Lord’s urgent appeal to each of us becomes clearer after this fiftieth day, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ (Jn 20:21)   We can clearly understand how it is necessary to ‘receive the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20:21) in order to realise this mandate.  To use the analogy of water which makes the earth fertile, the Holy Spirit makes the lives of Jesus’ disciples fertile, specifically strengthening them to fulfil their mission as ‘the particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose’ (1 Cor 12:7)

The adjective ‘particular’ brings us back to the beginning of today’s reflection.  What does it mean for us today ‘to speak in different languages’ and what does the new Law that God has given to His nascent Church consist of?  The Liturgy, that great educative channel and treasure of grace in the hands of the Church, clarifies these questions.

The new Law that, on this Sunday, was consigned to us is God’s life that is love: a love that doesn’t have barriers, not even death, after it was defeated on the Cross.  ‘He showed them his hands and his side.’ (Jn 20:20)  It is a gift that takes us directly into the heart of God and that can only give us the necessary strength so that our hearts ‘light up with the fire of His love’ (Cfr Acclamation to the Gospel).

We are therefore called to desire and welcome the gift of the Holy Spirit because our lives, even before we say a word, become a comprehensible testimony in the eyes of the many brothers who have not yet experienced the joy of being a Christian.  Renewed by Pentecost, they could also be ‘astounded and amazed’ and could say, ‘we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God’ (Acts 2: 7,11