“Come Holy Spirit Fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love!”
My brothers and sisters today we
are celebrating the great solemnity of Pentecost. In this day Catholics and
others Christians celebrate the day in which God poured His Holy Spirit into
the hearts of a band of scared fisherman and peasants, empowering them to
boldly witness to the resurrection and by their preaching renew the face of the
earth. What we might not realize is that today, there is another group of
people celebrating. As a matter of fact they have been celebrating this day
since they had their own encounter with the amazing power of God, way before
Christians ever did. Of course I’m speaking of the Jewish people, which Fifty
days after Passover celebrate the feast “Shavuot”.
I did a little bit of research
about this feast and was struck by the connections between this ancient Jewish
celebration and Pentecost. Let me share with you what I found. Christians
believe that since the first Pentecost, every time the Spirit of God is poured
into our hearts we receive the seven (Count them seven) gifts of the Holy
Spirit which are wisdom, understanding, good judgment, courage, knowledge,
reverence, and fear of offending God. Christians also believe that we are not
supposed to keep these gifts for ourselves but that we are to return them to
Him by living the Gospel message in our lives and preaching the good news
wherever we go.
What do this has to do with the
celebration of Shavout? Well… during this celebration the Jewish people hold a
ceremony called “Bikkurim” which means “First Fruits”. This is not a well known
ceremony these days (unlike the Passover) but it comes to us from the times of
Moses. In the book of Deuteronomy, we read that God gave a new land to the
people of Israel. We read that this land has been blessed with seven (count
them seven) crops, crops for which this land is very fertile. He also commanded
that on the day of Shavout (Fifty days after Passover) the first fruits of these
seven crops, of these gifts given by God, were to be collected and offered back
to Him in the temple. In the first Pentecost the men that were listening to the
apostles and believed in their powerful message were in Jerusalem to offer
their first fruits, instead they themselves became the first fruits of the
Church.
But the story does not end there,
why is Shavaut celebrated on the 50th day after the Jewish Passover and why use
this day to give God the First Fruits? Because this day (The 6th day of the
Jewish month of Sivan) is the day in which God gave the Torah (The 10
commandments and the law) to Moses in Mount Sinai. This is the day in which
God’s own words were given to the Hebrews so that they would become a light for
all the nations. This is the day in which God gave words that recreated a group
of escaped slaves into the great Nation of Israel.
If you think about it my brothers
and sisters, in this day in which these two great traditions celebrate
Pentecost, we celebrate the same event; God giving his children a gift that
will empower them, and His Children returning to him their first fruits.
Now there is one last comment I
would like to make. Some people read today’s first reading and make the mistake
of thinking that the gifts the apostles received in that first Pentecost
somehow have been lost; I wish these people would have been here this morning
or yesterday when 76 of our young people received the sacrament of
confirmation. Ok perhaps, we did not get a strong wind, the tongues of fire and
the speaking in tongues, but as someone that spend the last 9 months getting
them ready for this day, I have to tell you, they would have seen 76 young
adults filled with the spirit of God, eager to serve the church as ushers,
lectors, Eucharistic, and music ministers. They would have seen the first
fruits of a new generation of fully initiated Catholic Christians taking their
rightful place in our community. A new generation ready to be recreated and
eager to renew the face of the earth.
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