Pentecost (C) 05-27-07

Scripture Readings (Vigil)

First Genesis 11:1-9, or Exodus 19:3-8a,16-20b, or Ezekiel 37:1-14, or Joel 3:1-5
Second Romans 8:22-27
Gospel John 7:37-39

Scripture Readings (Day)

First Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11
Second Romans 8:8-17
Gospel John 20:19-23 or John 14:15-16,23b26

Prepared by: Rev. Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P.

1. Subject Matter

• The Holy Spirit on Pentecost, reversing the curse of Babel, unifies the nations by the Gospel
now available to all.
• Pentecost is not the birth of the Church, but its coming out of the Upper Room into public
manifestation.
• The Holy Spirit is the agent of Christian maturity who enables the Church’s members to
assume responsibility for representing Christ in the world.
• Pentecost is the inauguration of the “extraordinary” time of the Holy Spirit that is the “ordinary
time” of the liturgical year and the present time that it represents.

2. Exegetical Notes

• The Acts passage begins with the time of Pentecost being fulfilled, which refers not only to
the completion of the festival period, but also the awaited “day” of the prophets (Acts 2:17-21)
and the day promised by Christ (Acts 1:5 and Lk 24:49).
• The Jewish Pentecost feast was a festival of the harvest, “the first-fruits of which had been
offered on the day after the Passover. The two feasts were thus linked as feasts of the gift of
the Law.” (Congar) Compare “first-fruits” with “first-fruits of the Spirit” (Rm. 8:23).
• Regarding the Holy Spirit’s intercession, he pleads the cause of Christians with the Father,
but he also helps them to formulate their prayer. “Paul thus recognizes the Spirit’s ‘ineffable
sighs’ as the source of all genuine Christian prayer.” (Fitzmyer)
• While the Spirit in the early Church is associated with early Christian enthusiasm (source of
miracles and ecstasies, wondrous insight and exalted speech), Luke concentrates on his
comprehensive work in the dynamism of the mission. “The Spirit will be the principal mover of
the event which opens the church to the uncircumcised.” (NJBC)
• The “doors were locked” (Jn 20:19): compare with the sealed tomb. Question: “Where have
they laid him?” Answer: They have not put the risen and exalted Lord anywhere. (NJBC)

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• 692 When he proclaims and promises the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus calls him the
“Paraclete,” literally, “he who is called to one’s side,” ad-vocatus. “Paraclete” is commonly
translated by “consoler,” and Jesus is the first consoler. The Lord also called the Holy Spirit
“the Spirit of truth.”
• 693 Besides the proper name of “Holy Spirit,” which is most frequently used in the Acts of the
Apostles and in the Epistles, we also find in St. Pal the titles: the Spirit of the promise, the
Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, and the Spirit of God—and, in St.
Peter, the Spirit of glory.”
• 731 On the day of Pentecost when the seven weeks of Easter had come to an end, Christ’s
Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and
communicated as a divine person: of his fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in
abundance.
• 1287 This fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s, but was to be
communicated to the whole messianic people. On several occasions Christ promised this
outpouring of the Spirit, a promise which he fulfilled first on Easter Sunday and then more
strikingly at Pentecost. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the apostles began to proclaim ‘the mighty
works of God”’ and Peter declared this outpouring of the Spirit to be the sign of the messianic
age. Those who believed in the apostolic preaching and were baptized received the gift of
the Holy Spirit in their turn.
• 1076 The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the “dispensation of the
mystery”—the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and
communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church, “until he comes.” In this
age of the Church Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate
to this new age.
• 732 On that day [of Pentecost], the Holy Trinity is fully revealed. Since that day, the Kingdom
announced by Christ has been open to those who believe in him: in the humility of the flesh
and in faith, they already share in the communion of the Holy Trinity. By his coming, which
never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the “last days,” the time of the
Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated.
• 696 While water signifies birth and the fruitfulness of life given in the Holy Spirit, fire
symbolizes the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit’s actions.
• 830 The Church is catholic because Christ is present in her. “Where there is Christ Jesus,
there is the Catholic Church.” In her subsists the fullness of Christ’s body united with its
head; this implies that she receives from him “the fullness of the means of salvation” which
he has willed: correct and complete confession of faith, full sacramental life, and ordained
ministry in apostolic succession. The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the
day of Pentecost and will always be so until the day of the Parousia.
• 703 The Word of God and his Breath are at the origin of the being and life of every creature.
• 726 At the end of this mission of the Spirit, Mary became the Woman, the new Eve (“mother
of the living”), the mother of the “whole Christ.” As such, she was present with the Twelve,
who “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer,” at the dawn of the “end time” which the
Spirit was to inaugurate on the morning of Pentecost with the manifestation of the Church.
• 2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace
also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to
collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church.
There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are
furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and
meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” “benefit. Whatever their character—sometimes it is
extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues—charisms are oriented toward
sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the
service of charity which builds up the Church.

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities

• St. Gregory Nazianzen: The Old Testament preached the Father openly and the Son more
obscurely, while the New revealed the Son and hinted at the deity of the Holy Spirit. Now the
Spirit dwells in us and reveals himself more clearly to us.”
• St. Augustine: “In this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us
of his Spirit (1 Jn 4:13). So it is the Holy Spirit of which he has given us that makes us abide
in God and him in us. But this is precisely what love does. He then is the gift of God who is
love.”
• St. Augustine: “For the fullness of our happiness, beyond which there is none else, is this: to
enjoy God the three in whose image we were made. That is why it sometimes speaks of the
Holy Spirit as if he would suffice by himself for our bliss, and he does suffice by himself, for
the good reason that he cannot be separated from the Father and the Son.”
• St. Symeon the New Theologian: “If the Holy Spirit is called the key, then it is above all
through and in him that our spirit is enlightened and that we are purified, illuminated by the
light of knowledge, baptized from on high, born anew and made children of God.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “What proceeds in God by way of love does not proceed as begotten or
son, but rather as spirit. This name expresses a certain living movement and impulse, just as
anyone is described as moved or impelled by love to perform an action.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “What is given is given with no intention of return. Now the reason for
this is love since we give something to someone freely since we wish him or her well. So
what we first give is the love for wishing someone well. So it is clear that love has the nature
of a first gift through which all free gifts are given. So given the fact that the Holy Spirit
proceeds as love, he proceeds as the first gift.” (simplified)

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• St. Gregory Nazianzen, through the power of the Holy Spirit, became the first person in the
Christian tradition to boldly proclaim that the Holy Spirit is God.
• St. Catherine of Genoa explored in her writings and in her life the correspondence between
the Holy Spirit’s work in the human soul and in the visible Church.
• St. Patrick’s call to serve the Irish people matured over several years under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit. His harsh life in captivity was endured through his confidence that “at that
time ‘the Spirit was fervent’ in me.” His Trinitarian profession of faith is the heart of his
Confession.

6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI

• "What is the real Christian message of Pentecost? What is this “holy Spirit” of which it
speaks? . .World history is a struggle between two kinds of love: self-love to the point of
hatred for God, and love of God to the point of self-renunciation. This second love brings
about the redemption of the world and the self.”
• “How does the Spirit operate? First of all, by bestowing remembrance, a remembrance in
which the particular is joined to the whole, which in turn endows the particular, which hitherto
had not been understood, with its genuine meaning. A further characteristic of the Spirit is
listening: he does not speak in his own name, he listens, and teaches how to listen.”
• “The ultimate thirst of people cries out for the Holy Spirit. He, and he alone, is, at a profound
level, the fresh water without which there is no life. In the image of a spring, of the water that
irrigates and transforms a desert, that the human person meets like a secret promise, the
mystery of the Spirit becomes visible in an ineffable fashion that no rational meditation can
encompass. In man’s thirst, and in his being refreshed by water, is portrayed that infinite, far
more radical thirst that can be quenched by no other water.”
• “The Holy Spirit is eternally, of his very nature, God’s gift, God as wholly self-giving, God as
sharing himself, as gift. In that sense, the inner reason and basis for creation and salvation
history do after all lie in this quality of being of the Holy Spirit, as donum and datum. . . .He is
the only gift worthy of God: as God, God gives nothing other than God; he gives himself and
thereby everything.”
7. Other Considerations
• Surprisingly, the first proclamation of the Church is not that Jesus is Lord, nor that the
Kingdom of God is at hand, nor that we ought to “repent, and believe the Good News,” but
that a common speech is possible, that unity can be achieved, that God can be understood.
The gift of tongues given to the apostles is then both a precondition for the preaching of the
Gospel and the first fruits of the Gospel’s power.
• Babel is the natural condition of the world, so these foreigners were “confused because each
one heard these men speaking his own language.” Babel was already partly overcome in the
revelation of the prior covenant in that these individuals from various countries could
"understand" each other as common pilgrims. Yet the Gospel brings about a greater unity,
though what was meant to overcome confusion was so startling that it was at first a source of
confusion itself.
• The Holy Spirit is associated with forgiveness because he is the Spirit who sweeps over the
primeval chaos of the human heart and transforms it into a new creation. He makes anew by
obliterating a sinful past. The sacrament of reconciliation is a (moral) creation ex nihilo by
which a new creation comes into being through divine grace.
• Romans 8: The Spirit of God (1) enables us to live in him, , (2) bears witness to our adoption
and inheritance, (3) gives us his first fruits, (4) enables us to pray for what we need in order
that we can receive it. In these roles the Spirit of God respectively serves as animator,
witness, bestower, and divine intercessor.
• "[W]hen he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his
own, but he will speak what he heard, and will declare to you the things that are coming."
You and I are here now; things are still to come; the word and the work of the Holy Spirit
must then be still in progress. The revelation of God, definitively given in the Son, is yet
transmitted to us in this time, in this place, in a language that we can understand. This
"revelation" is personal, because revelation is person-to-person communication. The Holy
Spirit, helping us to interpret the creational and Scriptural revelations, serves as "translator"
so that the word of Christ–ultimately the word of the Father–can be understood in every age,
culture, and human heart.

Recommended Resources

BENEDICT XVI. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Edited by. Peter John
Cameron. Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006.
Congar, Yves. I Believe in the Holy Spirit. 3 vols. New York: Seabury Press, 1983.

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. Dogma and Preaching. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1985).

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Edited by R. A. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1990.