Dear Friends,

You should know by now that I love the Easter Season. Sure, I’ve given some longer-than-you’d-like homilies these days, but that’s at least in part because there’s so much to say. Pentecost, as the culmination of our 50-day celebration, demands the same kind of exuberant exposition!

Before Jesus’ sending of the Holy Spirit on his Apostles, Pentecost had long been a Jewish agricultural feast. 50 days after Passover, farmers would bring before God the first bundle of wheat from their crop as a two-part prayer: 1. to give thanks for what they had received from God, and 2. to implore him that their remaining crop be gathered unspoiled.

There’s another layer to this. Passover, celebrated with a symbolic meal, recalled the Jews’ being passed over by the Angel of Death. 50 days after their departure from Egypt, God’s people came to Mount Sinai where Moses received the law. Pentecost, then, isn’t merely about grain being gathered. It’s also about God giving to his people the Law, the way of life by which they are to live for him and his good purposes.

Saint Luke assumes we know this context.

In the Gospel author’s account of the first Christian Pentecost, we should see – 50 days after the new and definitive Passover – that the Apostles’ being filled with the Spirit and bringing people to trust and follow Jesus is like the bundle of wheat offered to God as a sign of the abundant harvest to come. Further, as Moses went up the mountain and came down with the Law, so now Jesus has ascended to the heavens and come down again with the dynamic power and energy of the Law - with God’s own life - to be written on and made flesh in human hearts.

God continues to pour out his Spirit today on all who pledge love and loyalty to Jesus. Together, animated by his Spirit, we are called to help God gather all peoples into his abundant harvest.

In the Peace of our Risen Lord,
Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ