pentecost sunday

pentecost sunday


I wrote the following "Opening the Word" column for Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2007, for Our Sunday Visitor:
In the Old Testament the feast of Pentecost (from the Greek word for “fiftieth”) was one of the three great pilgrimage festivals of Israel, a celebration of the spring harvest that took place fifty days after the offering of first fruits at Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For Christians, Pentecost marks the fruits and harvest of another sort. It is a celebration of a formative event in the history of the early Church—the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the newly birthed Church and the first bold proclamation of the Gospel by Peter, the head apostle, among the Jews.
“The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost,” states the Catechism, “by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.