Pentecost is one of the three most important feasts of the Church year.  Christmas is one of the three.  And the feast of Jesus’ resurrection – Easter – is the most important of all three, because if there were no resurrection, we would have no faith or hope at all.  The Jews were celebrating Pentecost 3,000 years ago.  It was one of their three most important feasts.  Originally, it was a harvest feast on which the first fruits were offered in gratitude to God.  It later came to be celebrated as the anniversary of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai.  The word itself means simply 50^th, the 50^th day after the Jewish Passover.  The Jews were celebrating the feast when the Spirit came on Jesus’ followers.  And so Pentecost is still celebrated, but we who are Christians celebrate it as the day on which God sent his Holy Spirit upon the Church.

Pentecost isn’t just the celebration of a past event.  It is important for us today, because the Holy Spirit is important for us today.  The Spirit is hard to picture, because it is like the air, unable to be seen, but something that we cannot live without.  In the waters of Baptism, the Christian receives the Spirit, and water − as you know − gives life.  Nothing lives without it.  Hence Jesus says of the Spirit: “He will guide you to all truth.”  A few examples might help.  If we want to know something about rocks, we go find rocks.  They won’t come to us, and they won’t run away from us.  In no way do they cooperate with us in getting to know them.  The initiative is all on our side if we are to know rocks.  If we want to study wild animals, that’s a little different.  We’ve got to go find them, and they could run away from us.  We have to be very quiet in observing them.  The initiative is mostly on our part if we are to know about wild animals, but they can attempt to prevent us from knowing them.  If we want to know another human being and they are determined for us not to know them, we probably won’t.  We have to win their confidence if they are going to open up to us.  The initiative is equally divided: it takes two to make a friendship.  When it comes to God, there is no way we could find Him or know Him if he didn’t show Himself to us.  And he has done so in Jesus Christ.  But we cannot know Jesus without the help of the Spirit, as St Paul says in our reading: “No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.”  And if we live by the Spirit, “the Spirit will produce in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.”

Fr. Gabriel Wankar
Priest-in-Residence