The Season of Pentecost
By the time this gets published we will be in the thick of the season of Pentecost.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “You silly goose, there is no ‘Season of Pentecost’!”
The Solemnity of Pentecost is, liturgically, a singular event; that is, we celebrate it once … and we celebrate it once. Done. End of story. We don’t mention anything about this massive event in the history of our faith until the next Easter season … to effectively mark the end of said Easter Season.
Easter is huge, don’t get me wrong. Without the Resurrection there is no redemption and marking the end of such a colossal event is, definitely, quite the occasion to celebrate. In the psyche of our minds, though, Pentecost has become nothing more than the end of a thing.
Sure, we call it the birthday of our Church … but we don’t really ever talk about it again.
We certainly lead up to it: starting with Easter we lead up to Pentecost like a well-written book leads to its climax. Leading up to Pentecost we journey with the early Church’s experience of Pentecost and her journey from the Pentecost Experience. But then, like a poorly written book we don’t do anything about it.
We compartmentalize this Pentecost Experience as something limited to the Apostles and not relevant to our lives today.
My beef with this idea that Pentecost nothing more than Easter’s book end, is that it doesn’t really jive with what we read in scripture and it lacks historical context.
Let’s start with scripture, what does it say?
Acts 1:8 - “ … you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you …”
also Acts 1:8 - “… and you shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth”;
we read about this phenomenon of “speaking in tongues” (here, here, here, here … oh, don’t forget this one right here);
and we have this other phenomenon of prophesy;
then there are these miraculous events that occur around the early church: miraculous healing, Angelic visits, mass conversions, eloquent preaching, etc.
Hmmm … reading this reminds me of something Jesus said:
“… he who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).
Historically--as in every-single-moment-after-Jesus-went-to-the-Father (otherwise known as his Ascension)--we see this type of Pentecost Experience throughout the Church:
in the lives of the Saints we read about and witness miraculous events that range from weather interventions, people being raised from the dead, limbs growing back, the Stigmata, bi-locating, etc;
then there’s the massive evangelical push that propagated our faith, quite literally, to the ends of the earth;
we also see throughout the history of the Church various writings about “speaking in tongues” from Doctors of the Church like Saints John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila (“Castles” 6.11) and Thomas Aquinas (Summa II.II.176) to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2003) and the Second Vatican Council (Apostolate of the Laity, 1.3);
You’ll find this interesting: here’s a great article called “Charismatic and Contemplative” that touches on St. John of Cross’ treatment of this gift;
and then we witness this phenomenon of prophecy from holy men and women like Saints John Bosco and Vincent Ferrer;
we also have Angelic visitations and apparitions of Mary.
Again, I want to emphasize what Jesus promised us:
“… he who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).
By examining the scriptural and historical context of the Solemnity of Pentecost, one can almost say that Pentecost isn’t merely Easter’s bookend. Instead, the Pentecost Experience of the Apostles and their ensuing Acts is a signpost that points to the ordinary life of the Church. Perhaps that’s what our Mother the Church is trying to tell us by placing Pentecost as the way back to the liturgical season of Ordinary Time.
Look at it like a demarcation in the path of the Church that began at Pentecost and takes us to The Eschaton: there was an Ordinary Time before Pentecost, then there’s the new Ordinary Time--rooted within the New Covenant--that we see acted out within the life of the Church as a whole.
I’ll take it a step further: there’s nothing in what Jesus said to us about doing his works, there’s nothing in the Acts of the Apostles, nothing in the teaching of the Church, and nothing in the writings of the Saints that suggests anything other than this:
the “ordinary time” of Christ’s Faithful People ought to be extraordinarily lived in the Power and Grace of the Holy Spirit.
Let this year’s Solemnity become a Season for you, one that (unlike our current Pentecost Experience) starts but never ends. Allow yourself to enter into a Season of Revival; enter this season by inviting the Holy Spirit to set your life ablaze and enable you to “take an active, conscientious and responsible part in the mission of the Church” (Christifideles Laici, 3).
To start, it’s easy: you simply need to invite him into your life and say, “Come, Holy Spirit, set my life on fire”