So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel.
Sir Thomas Mallory, Le Morte d’Arthur
When my children were small as the family drove to Mass, I offered the kids a dollar for the first one to sight the Questing Beast, tying the Arthurian legend with the great feast. When my son died on Pentecost twelve years ago, the bright spot on that bleak Pentecost was when my bride gave voice to a thought that had occurred to me: Larry has gone after the Questing Beast.
The birthday of the Church, inaugurated with the great miracles of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire underlining the universal nature of the mission of the Church, at Pentecost has always reminded me that since the coming of Christ we live in an age of miracles, if we only have the wit and the faith to see them.
Saint Peter realized that a new stage had entered into human history when he gave the first Pentecost sermon and cited the prophet Joel:
[28] And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. [29] Moreover upon my servants and handmaids in those days I will pour forth my spirit. [30] And I will shew wonders in heaven; and in earth, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke.
[31] The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood: before the great and dreadful day of the Lord doth come. [32] And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved: for in mount Sion, and in Jerusalem shall be salvation, as the Lord hath said, and in the residue whom the Lord shall call.
Joel 2: 28-31
Christ began His ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth reading from Isaiah:
[1] The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up. [2] To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn:
Isaiah 61: 1-2
The rest of the chapter of Isaiah reads like an outline of Christian history:
[3] To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify him. [4] And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation. [5] And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandmen, and the dressers of your vines.
[6] But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory. [7] For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them. [8] For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them. [9] And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. [10] I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.
[11] For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations.
Isaiah 61: 3-11
Isaiah tells us the ends and Joel tells us the means, both to be played out in subsequent human history. We live in a time of the great forgetting when Christians, all too many of them, have amnesia as to the great truths they have been taught. Pentecost reminds us of these great truths. These great truths can never be lost, but those who forget them will be.
(The actress singing in the video is Ann Blyth. Ninety-six years old and still going strong, she is that rarity in Hollywood, a devout Catholic, as demonstrated by her fifty-four year marriage to Doctor James McNulty, until his death in 2007, and their five children. She and her late husband were made Lady and Knight of the Holy Sepulcher by Cardinal Cook in 1973 for their good works.)
I have often wondered why Protestant Pentecostal denominations like the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, the Church of the Four Square Gospel, etc. don’t celebrate Pentecost Sunday as they do Christmas and Easter. Very odd.
I was born and raised in the Assemblies of God, but it wasn’t till I converted to Catholicism that I finally heard of Pentecost Sunday. When I ask Pentecostal preacher boys about this, invariably they say that every day is Pentecost. Well isn’t that the same as every day being Christmas or every day being Resurrection Sunday? They really don’t like arguing with me.
Ann Blyth singing was arranged by Father Patrick Peyton, the Rosary Priest. Patrick Peyton had active TB. His sister prayed for God to take her and cure Patrick. A miracle. Father Peyton’s sister died and he lived to almost 100.
Miracles do happen. Look in the mirror.
Bless Larry McClarey.