THE WORD: Pentecost

The Alabaster window from the Cathedra Petri depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove behind the high altar in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican by Italian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (c. 1660) (File)

This Sunday is Pentecost. On the Christian calendar, Pentecost is celebrated on the 50th day after Easter Sunday and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit to the followers of Jesus. The term is derived from the Greek word for 50th. The events of Pentecost were described in Acts 2 and found the Disciples celebrating the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which came on the 50th day after the celebration of the First Fruits.

The event came just days after Christ’s ascension to Heaven and fulfilled a promise made by Christ before he left his earthly form. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would sustain the early church. The arrival of the Holy Spirit came with a mighty wind and tongues of fire. The result was the beginning of the Christian faith as we know it.

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ROMANS 8: 22-25

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. 24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.