Pentecost
The Solemnity of Pentecost is celebrated fifty days after Easter. It is the feast on which we remember the gift of the Holy Spirit that overturns the confusion of Babel (see Gn. 11:9). In Jesus, who died, rose and ascended into Heaven, the peoples once again understand each other through one sole language, the language of love.
During the first half of the 3rd century, Tertullian and Origen were already speaking of Pentecost as a Feast that followed the Ascension. As the pilgrim Egeria attests, Pentecost was a Feast that was already celebrated in Jerusalem in the 4th century. It proposed the theme of the renewal that the coming of the Spirit works in the hearts of men and women.
Pentecost has its roots in the Feast of Weeks celebrated by the Jewish people. This was an annual agricultural festival surrounding the first fruits of the spring harvest and celebrated the year’s harvest. Later, it was connected with the revelation of God to Moses, the Ten Commandments. Then, for Christians, it would become the moment in which Christ, having returned to the glory of the Father, would make himself present in the hearts of men and women through His Spirit, the law given by God written in their hearts: “The new and definitive Covenant is no longer founded on a law that is written on two stone tablets, but on the action of the Spirit of God which makes all things new and is etched on hearts of flesh” (Pope Francis, General Audience, 19 June 2019). With Pentecost, the Church was born and her evangelizing mission began.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Closed doors
The evangelist John has no fear of recalling the “closed doors” behind which the disciples found themselves imprisoned by fear. Being behind closed doors certainly did not allow their enemies to gain entrance, but it also did not allow them to go out. At first it might seem to be a situation that may have made them feel safe, at peace. In the long run, however, all the limitations would surface because those closed doors revealed the fright of the disciples, their insecurity, their cowardice. In a word, they manifested what little faith they had in what Jesus had shared with them during the previous three years of their lives. From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has invited the Church to “go out”, to be a Church capable of giving testimony, despite its fears and doubts.
The unexpected
Fear is a symptom of not understanding that what had happened was part of God’s plan of salvation. Yet, Jesus “enters” through those doors, he breaks through their fear with His love, He touches with His peace those who were imprisoned by their fears. He does not rebuke them, nor does He ask for explanations. He already knows everything anyway. What He does is “he showed them his hands and his side”. The Risen One presents Himself to His disciples through the signs of His Passion and Cross, indicating to them that He has conquered death.
Sending forth
There is another passage that is worth being emphasized. After having “showed himself to them”, Jesus “sends” the disciples. These same fearful disciples, closed behind the doors of their apparent security, are now “sent” to testify to what they had seen and touched. For fear, suspicion and timidity are overcome in going out toward others, in becoming neighbours to others. And at the heart of this testimony is Mercy. In the end, this is the experience the disciples have just experienced with Jesus, and it is this experience they are now called to “recount” to others, fortified with the gift of the Spirit.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend:
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end.
