Not a fan of the NAB's footnotes...

In a month's time, we will hear about the miraculous event which took place on the day of Pentecost, when the Apostles (and probably the Mother of our Lord and 100+ other disciples) received the Holy Spirit in the manifestation of tongues of fire.  Then, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, they went out to preach about Jesus Christ, and Jews from more than a dozen locales understood them in their native tongues.

Or not.

Footnote 1, verses 1-41:  Luke's pentecostal narrative consists of an introduction (Acts 2:1-13), a speech ascribed to Peter declaring the resurrection of Jesus and its messianic significance (Acts 2:14-36), and a favorable response from the audience (Acts 2:37-41). It is likely that the narrative telescopes events that took place over a period of time and on a less dramatic scale. The Twelve were not originally in a position to proclaim publicly the messianic office of Jesus without incurring immediate reprisal from those religious authorities in Jerusalem who had brought about Jesus' death precisely to stem the rising tide in his favor.

Pentecost: Come, Holy Ghost!

Normally, I'd post an icon or painting of the solemnity or feast day.

But I suggest you check out the amazing selection of pictures of Babel and Pentecost at Dr. Judisch's blog, "Of Towers and Tongues". They're along the right side-bar down the page.

The Mass as Mission (Part IV)

← Read Part III

The Mass, which is modeled (generally speaking) after Christ's life from Palm Sunday through Ascension Thursday, is an exchange between God and man, between heaven and earth. While the dismissal of Mass corresponds to the Great Commission (and the Lord's subsequent Ascension into Heaven), the whole Mass is, for each of us, an experience of Pentecost.

This encounter with Pentecost is where the Church draws the strength to carry out the mission given to Her by the Lord to preach to all the nations of the world. The primary end of the Mass is to glorify God by rendering proper worship unto the Blessed Trinity by prayers of adoration, petition, contrition, and thanksgiving, culminating in the ultimate prayer and the ultimate sacrifice, the Eucharist: the offering of the Son, through the Holy Spirit, to the Father. But the secondary end of the Mass is the sanctification of God's people, and through them, the world. It is through the sustenance and refreshment which God gives us in the Mass that each of us is able to be a disciple of and witness to the Lord in the world.

Pentecost and the Birth of the Church

More than one event has been called the "birth of the Church". One such incident is the piercing of the side of Christ as he hung lifeless on the cross (John 19:33-34), which corresponds to the forming of Eve from the side of Adam (her spouse) while he slept; but Pentecost also represents the "birth of the Church" because it is here that the Church begins to carry out the mission entrusted to Her by the Lord.

St. Luke, companion of St. Paul, wrote the Acts of the Apostles as a veritable sequel to his gospel, a chronicle the early years of the Church. He records for us the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, a Jewish feast day held 50 days after the sabbath following the Passover. (Leviticus 23:15-16) At the time, the Apostles were praying in Jerusalem along with Mary the mother of Jesus and other kin of the Lord and the other women who had followed him. (Acts 1:12-14) After the first novena — nine days of prayer starting on the day after the Ascension to that Sunday of the Pentecost — the Holy Spirit manifested himself to them in the form of tongues of fire. After this, they began to prophesy and St. Peter preached his first sermon, calling for the faithful Jews who had come to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to repent and be baptized into Christ. (Acts 2)

The Church, born from the side of Christ, now took her first breath, a divine breath, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit. It was on Pentecost that the mission began to be lived, and as soon as this mission had been commenced, the new disciples of Christ "devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers". (Acts 2:42)

An Exchange Between God and Man

The Mass, by God's grace, gives us what we need to fulfill His will for us on earth. Receiving the Real Presence of our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament when we receive Holy Communion is not the only thing we "get" out of Mass, and we put far more into it than we might imagine. Over the next several installments (under the title "The Mass as Exchange") we will examine each part of the Mass to see what "exchange" is made between God and man, always using Pentecost as our point of reference. Every grace and blessing which the newborn Church received to carry out Her mission is made present for us at every Mass. This perspective, whereby the Mass is our personal Pentecost, will help us to understand the Mass as mission and prepare us for living that mission daily.

May the Lord bless us +, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.

Scripture Reflection: The Feast of Pentecost

(This post is an entry for the Catholic Carnival #121.)

Compare the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) with the first Christian Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11).

Why did God confuse the tongues of men at Babel? First, let us understand what the men were doing. We hear from the men themselves: "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4). I can spot two problems with their plan. First of all, it was God's will that mankind be "scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:4): He had already told us to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28)... three times (cf. Genesis 9:1, 7). Why, then, was man afraid of being thus scattered? Second, these men sought to make a name for themselves rather than for God. The city and tower were not for the glory of God, but for the glory of Man, and unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

So God, seeing that mankind put His will beneath their own and sought to elevate their own names rather than the name of the One True God, confused their speech and scattered them abroad. This was a punishment of sorts for not keeping the covenant of filling the whole earth, and for preferring their own glorification over God's.

But on the day of Pentecost, after Jesus the Christ had been crucified, raised, and had ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit filled the Apostles and those with them (including Mary, the mother of Jesus, cf. Acts 1:12-14) and "confused their speech". God granted the same gift (not punishment) to these holy men and women again, so that His will might be fulfilled.

Jesus told his friends to "make disciples of all nations" (cf. Matthew 28:19). But how could they do so without being able to preach to those nations, using words the nations could understand? Here is the beautiful Wisdom of God displayed: yet another foreshadowing of the New Covenant in the Old. Just as the sacrifice of Isaac prefigured the sacrifice of Jesus, just as the ark of Noah prefigured baptism, just as the manna in the desert prefigured the True Bread from Heaven, so to did the confusing of tongues in Babel prefigure the confusing -- and understanding -- of tongues in Jerusalem.

The disciples of Jesus spoke in various tongues -- not the languages they already knew, but the languages of the devout Jews visiting Jerusalem, the men who were "Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians" (Acts 2:9-11). This was for the furthering of the Kingdom and the glorification of God, that all the world might know the saving power of Jesus Christ and believe in him.

Instead of building a city of men, now we are building the city of God.