We suitably terminate our seven weeks of Easter with today’s festival of Pentecost. This is not necessarily a Christian system; it is a Jewish one. Long before our Lord walked this earth as a man, the Hebrew nation celebrated their liberation from slavery in Egypt with the festivals of Passover and of unleavened bread. Immediately following this was the harvest festival of first fruits. Now, Christians have celebrated Good Friday as our own Passover (with Christ as Passover Lamb), not of liberation from slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, but indeed as liberation from sin and death of mankind from this world of darkness. And on Easter Sunday, we celebrate our own festival of first fruits; as S. Paul states clearly in his letters to the Corinthians, Christ Risen from the dead is the first-fruits of all those who have died.
“If the dead, I say, do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, all your faith is a delusion; you are back in your sins. It follows, too, that those who have gone to their rest in Christ have been lost. If the hope we have learned to repose in Christ belongs to this world only, then we are unhappy beyond all other men. But no, Christ has risen from the dead, the first-fruits of all those who have fallen asleep; a man had brought us death, and a man should bring us resurrection from the dead; just as all have died with Adam, so with Christ all will be brought to life.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 16-22 [link]
Now, seven weeks after the festival of first fruits, the Hebrews marked another harvest festival, which they called Weeks: seven weeks of seven days. Hebrews in Greek countries used the Greek word Pentecost for this. Seven is a meaningful number in Hebrew writings, and Weeks celebrated also the giving of the Law of Moses (the Ten Commandments) to Moses on the mountain. For centuries after that immortalised moment on Mount Sinai, prophets like Ezekiel spoke of the Law of God one day being written upon the hearts of the men and women who loved Him, in such a way that we should know almost automatically what it is we should say and do, without having to consult Scriptures and catechisms, etc. We should know it because the Holy One lives within us.
“I mean to set you free from the power of the Gentiles, bring you home again from every part of the earth. And then I will pour cleansing streams over you, to purge you from every stain you bear, purge you from the taint of your idolatry. I will give you a new heart, and breathe a new spirit into you; I will take away from your breasts those hearts that are hard as stone, and give you human hearts instead. I will make My Spirit penetrate you, so that you will follow in the path of My Law, remember and carry out My decrees. So shall you make your home in the land I promised to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”
Prophecy of Ezechiel, 36: 24-28 [link]
How would this happen? How would God effect this engraving of His upon our hearts. Isn’t it natural that it was on the feast of Weeks or Pentecost that the rush of wind we hear about in our readings today came down upon the Apostles of Christ and imprinted within their hearts far more than the prophet Ezekiel could ever have imagined? In the last hours of the Jewish festival of Pentecost then, the heavens burst forth and the fire of Love, seen burning upon the cross of Christ on Good Friday, descended upon the men He had appointed as His priests and evangelists.
“When the day of Pentecost came round, while they were all gathered together in unity of purpose, all at once a sound came from heaven like that of a strong wind blowing, and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then appeared to them what seemed to be tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in strange languages, as the Spirit gave utterance to each.”
Acts of the Apostles, 2: 1-4 [link]
The outstanding effect was thus the reversal of the ancient curse imposed upon mankind when we had begun to build a tower at Babel in Mesopotamia, in a direct challenge to the Holy One – we would have climbed up to heaven uninvited and seized upon the Tree of Life that had been forbidden us after the sin of Adam and Eve, if we could manage it. And He divided us in speech until such a time should come as mankind should learn humility and submission to His will for us. And mankind demonstrated that very humility and submission upon a Cross outside Jerusalem, on Good Friday. Learn from me, our Lord had once said, for I am meek and humble of heart, and (if you too are meek and humble of heart) you will find rest for your souls. Humanity is thus redeemed in Christ from its ancient rebellion against the Holy One, and those united to Christ thus receive the grace of holy abandon to His will, and the ability to be united not only in mind and heart, but in understanding and language.
“Let me say this; learn to live and move in the spirit; then there is no danger of your giving way to the impulses of corrupt nature. The impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war with one another; either is clean contrary to the other, and that is why you cannot do all that your will approves. It is by letting the spirit lead you that you free yourselves from the yoke of the law. It is easy to see what effects proceed from corrupt nature; they are such things as adultery, impurity, incontinence, luxury, idolatry, witchcraft, feuds, quarrels, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions, spite, murder, drunkenness, and debauchery. I warn you, as I have warned you before, that those who live in such a way will not inherit God’s kingdom.”
Letter of S. Paul to the Galatians, 5: 16-21 [link]
Yes, we have all received the Holy Spirit in the manner of the rush of wind upon the Apostles and our Lady at our Confirmations, but are we truly guided by this Spirit of God, or do we still try to have our own way? S. Paul says in our second reading (above, to the Galatians) that if we are truly guided by the Holy Spirit, we should avoid self-indulgence, especially with regard to serious sins, of which he provides quite the catalogue. Looking about us at the world we live in, we can see a humanity lost to self-indulgence, and in growing enmity towards Christ and His Church. Even Catholics quarrel with the eternal Law, as expressed principally in our time by both Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
But if we are honest, we will all of us note that spirit of rebellion in our hearts. We shall therefore never cease to call ourselves sinners and, as Paul concludes, seek to be directed by the Holy Spirit rather than by our own wills. For, in the words of the gospel reading, it is through this submission of our wills to the Holy One that we shall receive thereby the things that are of Christ, we shall commune with the Truth Who is Christ, and we shall be witnesses to glorify the Name of Jesus before all men.
“‘I have still much to say to you, but it is beyond your reach as yet. It will be for Him, the truth-giving Spirit, when He comes, to guide you into all truth. He will not utter a message of His own; He will utter the message that has been given to Him; and He will make plain to you what is still to come. And He will bring honour to Me, because it is from Me that He will derive what He makes plain to you. I say that He will derive from Me what He makes plain to you, because all that belongs to the Father belongs to Me.'”
Gospel of S. John, 16: 12-15
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 