What is Pentecost?

The day

Pentecost (from the Greek pentekoste, "fiftieth") falls on the fiftieth day of the Easter season, the seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday. The day commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Upper Room at Jerusalem, ten days after the Ascension and fifty days after the Resurrection.

The Catholic celebration is rooted in the Jewish feast of Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), which occurs fifty days after the Passover (Leviticus 23:15-16). Shavuot in the Old Testament marked the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. In the New Testament, Christian Pentecost marks the giving of the Holy Spirit, the inscription of the New Law on the hearts of the apostles.

The narrative

The narrative is recorded in Acts of the Apostles 2:1-13. The apostles, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the women who had followed Christ, and the broader circle of disciples (about 120 persons in total, per Acts 1:15), were gathered in the Upper Room. On the morning of the feast, three signs of the descent of the Spirit were given:

1. A sound from heaven like a strong rushing wind that filled the entire house.
2. Tongues as of fire that parted and rested upon each of them.
3. The gift of speech in many languages, by which they immediately began to proclaim the mighty works of God.

The crowd of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem for the feast (Jews from "every nation under heaven," Acts 2:5) heard the apostles speaking in their own native languages. Saint Peter then delivered the first apostolic sermon (Acts 2:14-36), interpreting the descent of the Spirit through the prophecy of Joel and proclaiming the death and Resurrection of Christ. Three thousand were baptized that day.

Pentecost is therefore the foundational moment of the Church's public mission: the day on which the Catholic Church, animated by the Spirit, began its universal preaching of the Gospel.

For the rosary mystery, see the third Glorious Mystery, the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

The liturgical celebration

Pentecost is celebrated as a solemnity in the Catholic Church, the closing day of the Easter season. Distinctive liturgical features:

• The liturgical color is red. This is the only day of the Easter season on which the color is not white or gold. The red signifies the tongues of fire and the Spirit.
• A sequence is sung before the Gospel: Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit), one of only four sequences in the current Roman Missal (the others being on Easter Sunday, Corpus Christi, and Our Lady of Sorrows).
• The Vigil of Pentecost, on the evening of the Saturday before, may be celebrated with an extended Liturgy of the Word with up to four Old Testament readings.
• The Pentecost Octave was abolished in the 1969 calendar reform; the Easter Candle is removed from the sanctuary after Pentecost Sunday and the Easter season concludes.

The traditional novena before Pentecost

The nine days from the Ascension to Pentecost are the original novena: the nine days during which the apostles, with Mary, prayed in the Upper Room awaiting the descent of the Spirit. Every subsequent Catholic novena takes its nine-day pattern from this original. See the Holy Spirit Novena for the contemporary form of this prayer, traditionally prayed from the Friday after the Ascension through the Saturday before Pentecost.

Pentecost as the birthday of the Church

The Catholic tradition has often called Pentecost the "birthday of the Church." Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church was founded over a longer arc: Christ began calling apostles during his public ministry, instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood at the Last Supper, and breathed the Holy Spirit on the apostles in conferring the power to forgive sins (John 20:22-23, the institution of the sacrament of Confession). What Pentecost adds is the public, manifest indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon the whole body of disciples and the inauguration of the Church's universal preaching mission.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "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" (CCC 731).¹

After Pentecost

The day after Pentecost Sunday, the Catholic Church returns to Ordinary Time. The first solemnity of post-Pentecost Ordinary Time is the Most Holy Trinity (the Sunday after Pentecost), followed by Corpus Christi, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the long stretch of summer and autumn Sundays.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 731 to 741, on the descent of the Holy Spirit. ↩