Pentecost Sunday

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Location: All Parishes

Pentecost concludes the Easter Season, which leads into Ordinary Time. It is considered the birthday of the Church, for it was on this day, that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and filled them with the gifts they needed to lead the Church. This event took place 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven and promised the coming of the Advocate. This year, Pentecost Sunday is celebrated May 19.

"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)

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pentecost instituted the "age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church, 'until he comes.' In this age of the Church, Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West calls 'the sacramental economy;' this is the communication (or 'dispensation) of the fruits of Christ's paschal mystery in the celebration of the Church's 'sacramental' liturgy." (no. 1076).

And through the sacrament of confirmation, specifically, we receive the Holy Spirit and are able to experience how Pentecost is not just a feast day we celebrate, but a special and unique relationship that is always present both in the body of the Church and each of its members individually. 

 In the Old Testament the Israelites celebrated the Pentecost festival 50 days after Passover. This celebration takes on a whole new meaning in Jesus. His "Passover" took place through his "passage into suffering and death on the cross, and along with this, his defeat of sin, death and the devil, a victory that was revealed in his resurrection, explained Father Steve Grunow with Word on Fire. "What this text from the Book of Acts is doing is evoking and connecting the Passover and Pentecost of the Old Testament with the Passover and Pentecost of the New Testament."