PENTECOST SUNDAY - JUNE 8, 2025

PENTECOST SUNDAY

Fifty days ago, we awoke with the Apostles and with the holy women who discovered that their lord was no longer in the tomb of death. He had resurrected to life, appeared to his followers, and gave them a gift–in the physical act of breathing on them, Christ told them to receive the Holy Spirit, which they retained with them for the next seven weeks, until they were empowered to utilize that same Spirit to send them out into the world to complete the Gospel message by going to the ends of the world to share Christ with others. The commemoration of this moment, when the gift was now effectualized, is celebrated today on Pentecost Sunday. However, even though we celebrate this feast every year fifty days after Easter Sunday, rarely do we appreciate just how fulfilling this moment was, not just for the beginning of the Church, but for the completion of the promises and identity of our Jewish roots.

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The word Pentecost is Greek, meaning “fiftieth”. The Pentecost we know and understand today is a Christian Solemnity commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s followers. However, Pentecost was also a Jewish feast, known in Hebrew as Shavuot, the Feast of the Harvest. Many mistakenly believe Shavuot, the Jewish Pentecost, was celebrated fifty days after Passover, but the official 50-day count began ceremoniously in front of the Holy of Holies on the Jewish feast of First-Fruits, known as Bikkurim, a joyous occasion that took place the morning after the first Sabbath after Passover. On the same morning the Apostles were receiving word from Mary Magdalene that Christ had appeared to her in the garden outside of the tomb, Jewish children (like children who search for Easter eggs on Easter morning) would have been camping out in the fields outside of Jerusalem, eagerly searching for the “first-fruit” of the season, a sheaf of barley to be presented to the High Priest as a sign that the Harvest was beginning. Later that day, the High Priest would present the sheaf to God in front of the Holy of Holies and officially start the countdown to Shavuot. Shavuot was not just a feast of Harvest, when the barley was ripe and ready to be picked; this Jewish Pentecost feast was also the commemoration of Moses receiving the Law from God on Mount Sinai. The descent of the Holy Spirit was a complete fulfillment of both the harvest and the reception of the Law. This occurred fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ and is often referred to as the birthday of the Church, when souls began to be harvested; on this day, we are told in Acts of the Apostles that “around 3,000 people were baptized” and the Church began to bloom into new life.