Scripture tells us that at nine o’clock in the morning on that Pentecost day, 50 days after the first Easter, there appeared many tongues as of fire, being carried above the heads of the Virgin Mary, the apostles, and the disciples who were gathered together to pray. The onion domes atop our church and on the tabernacle represent these very flames of the Holy Spirit – the parish community, is supposed to be on fire, in the power of that Spirit. We are meant to be a community that lives out the law of God in our hearts, in our actions, in our words, in our prayers, in our thoughts. Why fire? Why didn’t the Spirit come in the form of a dove, as at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan?
The Jewish feast of Pentecost, or Shavout, is a four-day feast also known as the “Feast of Weeks,” and takes place 50 days after the Passover. Passover and Shavout are intimately connected. Passover is the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Shavout commemorates the end of that initial stage of Israel’s journey out of Egypt, and their deliverance from idolatry, when Moses brought them to Mt. Sinai and gave the people the Ten Commandments, written by the hand of God, proclaimed to Moses by the Eternal Word of God, that Word which became incarnate in the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit as we proclaim in the Creed.
The Law told the Israelites how they would live as a unique people, worshipping only one God and professing that their God was the only God for the entire human race. Passover celebrated their freedom from bondage, while Shavout celebrated the new covenant formed between God and Israel. It is a reminder that they were freed for something: to be God’s holy people, a royal priesthood, a light to the nations.
When Moses went up to Sinai in Exodus chapter 19, 16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire”. That’s why the Spirit descended on Pentecost morning in the form of tongues of fire and why we have onion domes atop our churches –
the fire that once touched Sinai to reveal God’s law, the fire that spoke once only to Moses, now descends on all of the men and women gathered in the upper room, to set them on fire for God’s new revelation, the fulfillment of the Law, the fulfillment of God’s plan, in the proclaiming of the New Covenant, first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles of the world. Jesus fulfilled the Law by His death and resurrection, as the true Lamb of God (John 1:29). Jesus’ death on the cross took place just prior to the beginning of the Passover, when the Passover lambs were being slain. In his crucifixion, Jesus is both victim and priest, offering Himself in atonement for our sins. One chief purpose of the Law of Moses was to provide the people of Israel ways to make reparation for their sins. Yet, as St. Paul points out in the Letter to the Romans, the sacrifices of the Law could not justify us. Jesus’ self-sacrificial offering, however, is infinitely perfect and we are justified through his Cross.
Jesus fulfills the Law by offering Himself as the pure sacrifice by which a new and eternal covenant (Jeremiah 31:31, 32:40) would be made between humanity and God. This new covenant is sealed not only with Jesus’ death, but with His resurrection, which shows that sin and death have been conquered, and that eternal life is offered to us.
The first Pentecost brought thousands to faith in Christ, Jews who spoke multiple languages, who each heard the good news proclaimed by Saint Peter and the disciples in their own languages; the Spirit that descended at Babel to scatter people now unites them. People were in Jerusalem from every part of the Roman and Persian empires, and probably beyond. That stormy noise from heaven brought the curious to the house, but Peter’s sermon brought people from all walks of life into the new faith. We teach that we have the fullness of God’s revelation, given to the Catholic Church. We have access to this once and final revelation entrusted to our Church, entrusted to each of us through the holy mysteries of baptism and chrismation. We are fed through the Holy Eucharist, we are forgiven our faults through confession, we are healed through the mystery of anointing. We have the opportunity, like the apostles, to encounter Christ through these sacred mysteries, to be transformed by Jesus Christ through our personal and liturgical prayers.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote that being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” We are his disciples; we are entrusted with the mission and message of the gospel. The Holy Spirit can help us speak well, witness well, to the people around us, to bring them to faith in the Church of Jesus Christ.
Pentecost launched the Catholic Church into the world, proclaiming the Good News through the words of the very man who had denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of the high priest. Within two generations, Christianity was firmly entrenched across the Middle East, Italy, North Africa, Spain, France, most of the Middle East and into Iran and India.
The world then was pagan, worshipping many gods, Much of what used to be considered the Christian world now is losing its way, and it needs disciples, people who are on fire with the Holy Spirit. God has raised up multiple people in our time to inspire us to go forward, in faith and love for Him. Carlo Acutis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Acutis ) was 15 when he died of leukemia, but his example and computer work set people on fire today. Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Beltrame_Quattrocchi_and_Maria_Corsini
were the first married couple to be beatified together, and saved their daughter from dying in an abortion.
The Brazilian Guido Schäffer
was a medical student and surfer who led other young men to Christ. We are blessed with a new cloud of witnesses, and we are called to imitate them in faith, by opening ourselves to personally meeting Christ in worship, in prayer, in the sacraments, in our reading and study.
Disciples today need to experience once again, or for the first time, this encounter. The Byzantine rite prays in the way that it does today to inspire the faithful to be open to the action of the Holy Spirit, to be open to that personal encounter, to be open to being missionaries, to be open to growing in faith. May we have a blessed Pentecost, and blessed lives, and be on fire always for Christ and His holy Church.