The word Pentecost comes from the Greek word “pentecostes” which means “fiftieth.” Originally, Pentecost was the Greek Name for the Jewish spring harvest festival of Shavuot in the Hebrew. On Shavuot, Jews gave thanksgiving to God for the completion of the spring harvest, at which the newly harvested barley would be baked into two loaves of bread and offered to God. Shavuot was a celebration of God causing the crops to live and grow and bear fruit, which allow God’s people to live and grow and fulfill their purpose.
On Shavuot, the Jews also celebrate God’s covenant with Noah, which took place fifty days after the great flood, a second chance for the human race that had become deeply corrupt with vice and sin. Shavuot therefore celebrates God’s mercy and a new beginning for humanity called to goodness, faithfulness, and virtue.
Thirdly, Shavuot celebrates the Covenant God made with Moses at Mt. Sinai occurring, you guessed it, fifty days after the Exodus from Egypt. At Sinai, the Spirit of God was given to the jewish elders, enabling them to prophesy and teach and lead God’s people. Therefore Shavuot also celebrates a new and deepened relationship with God as a chosen people.
In these three ways, the Jewish Feast of Pentecost foreshadowed the Christian Feast we now celebrate. For today, like the Jews thanking God for the harvest that allows them to live and grow and bear fruit, we express our gratitude for the gift of the Holy Spirit which allows the Church live and grow and bear fruit. Like the Jews thanking God for the covenant with Noah, a second chance for the human race, so too the Church thanks God for the new beginning offered to humanity through Christ and the Spirit. And like the Jews who celebrate the covenant at Sinai and the imparting of the spirit upon the elders, we Christians celebrate the giving of the Spirit upon the whole Church; for through Baptism, every Christian is given the gift of the Holy Spirit and the task to preach and prophecy and order our lives in a way that glorifies God and draws souls to Christ.
In the Acts of the Apostles all throughout the Easter Season, we’ve heard of the early Church faithfully carrying out that mission begun on that first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles in the upper room in presence of the Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit filled the apostles with a fire for the mission of the Church—evangelization. And we find them bursting out of the locked doors of the upper room, speaking in all the tongues of the nations, so that all peoples could understand and believe the saving Gospel of Christ. So too, we must speak in all of the languages of the world today, to draw souls to Christ. The animating fire given to the Church 2000 years ago that first Pentecost continues to burn and spread wherever the Gospel is preached and the fruits of the Spirit are manifest and shared.
On Pentecost Sunday in 1978, Blessed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, said, “It will always be Pentecost in the Church provided the Church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit shine forth from her countenance. When the Church ceases to let her strength rest on the Power from above which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day, and when the Church leans rather on the weak forces of the power or wealth of this earth, then the Church ceases to be newsworthy. The Church will be fair to see, perennially young, attractive in every age, as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her and she reflects that Spirit through her communities, through her pastors, through her very life"
The blessed Archbishop reminds us that we have a duty to cooperate with the Spirit, to cultivate the life of the Spirit, and the Church, our way of life is attractive when we do so. But he also reminds us that there are a lot of forces in our world that seek to extinguish that fire—a lot of vices that vie for our attention and sap our spiritual energy—that make us boring and unattractive. Why would anyone become Christian if we just looked like the rest of the world?
The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once said something similar. He said, "Even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people--frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our Faith." And that happens when we return to the sin and vice and fear that God desires to deliver us from. Pope Francis said something similar when he warned of how Christians due to fear of living out the Gospel can become “spiritual mummies”. Encased in tombs, inanimate, unenthusiastic.
So today is a powerful day to ask the Holy Spirit to show you how your sins or fears might be keeping you from bursting out of locked doors like St. Peter.
The Holy Spirit descended upon the Church to embolden us for the Gospel, and also to help purify us, like a fire, from our sins, vices, and earthly attachments.
And he does so, most radically, in the Sacrament of Confession. “Receive the Holy Spirit” t Lord commanded the apostles: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
The prayer of absolution in Sacramental Confession echoes today’s Pentecost Gospel when the priest says, “God, the Father of mercies, through the Death and Resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins.”
Frequent Confession is a powerful means of making our lives fertile soil for Spiritual Fruit to grow. It renews the covenant in us, it is one of the works of the Holy Spirit now, in the Church, to bring about fecundity and growth and life. Sacramental Confession is a Pentecost. Embrace Pentecost by embracing Confession. Please, don’t let fear keep you locked and frozen and mummified in your sins. But allow the Holy Spirit to revivify you and renew his Fire within you frequently, regularly.
Pope Francis himself pleaded with the Church to make good use of the Sacrament of Confession. He said, we cannot remove our sins by ourselves. Only God takes [our sin] away, only he by his mercy can make us emerge from the depths of our misery. Like those disciples [who had run away from the cross and locked themselves in the upper room], we need to let ourselves be forgiven, to ask heartfelt pardon of the Lord. We need to open our hearts to being forgiven. Forgiveness in the Holy Spirit is the Easter gift that enables our interior resurrection. Let us ask for the grace to accept that gift, to embrace the Sacrament of forgiveness…Confession is the Sacrament of resurrection, pure mercy.” Whatever you are going through in life, there is always a desire for that "interior resurrection" that Holy Father speaks of of, to be lifted out of some misery, through the spirit. And that can happen when we make good use of Sacramental Confession.
Pentecost is the capstone of everything we've been celebrating from the beginning of Lent, through Easter: the forgiveness of sins is available to us through Christ. And Sacramental Confession renews that covenant in Christ's blood which forgives the sins we commit after baptism. It is good for us to go to Confession during Advent and Lent of course, but we have a long stretch of months before Advent, so make sure you get to confession regularly, in order for the Holy Spirit to remove some of those road blocks to God’s grace.
We’ve got work to do as God’s people, God’s work, and the fire of Pentecost needs to be emblazoned among us. So make use of Confession, and all the ways God wishes to kindle his life within you. Veni Sancte Spiritus. For the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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