From the Friars: Pentecost

It’s harvest time! Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost. Pentecost comes from a Greek word meaning fifty. The Jewish Festival of Pentecost (called Shavuot or “weeks” in Hebrew) fell on the fiftieth day (“a week of weeks”) after the Passover. Shavuot was the celebration of the early wheat harvest, which usually occurred in the latter part of May. On that day, the Jews celebrated the time when God gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. The High Priest took two loaves of freshly baked wheat bread and offer them before the Lord.

Happy Birthday! On the first Christian Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Mary in the form of Tongues of Fire, Peter preached the Good News of the Risen Lord to Jews from every land gathered in Jerusalem and over 3000 people were baptized. Hence Pentecost is known as the birthday of the Roman Catholic Church. Our Church began 1989 years ago.

Notice what I just described? Each week in the Creed we pray “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”. In that brief statement, we profess the Four Marks of the Church. These four characteristics can help anyone discern which Church is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ. This formula was first defined by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, but it comes from the description of the Church at Pentecost.

At that first Pentecost, we see that the Church was one because it was gathered in one place, and all believed in one teaching. The Church was holy because it was full of the Holy Spirit and had the power to make others holy through the sacraments. It was catholic because it was universal—it had members from every land. It was apostolic because it was founded on the apostles and had apostolic teachings. In other words, our one Holy Roman Catholic Church is the same one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church which began at Pentecost nearly two thousand years ago. Though we are 1989 years “old”, we are forever “young”, because we are the same Church, born of the same Spirit, with the same distinguishing four “birth marks” on the day which we were born. .

—Fr. Andrew