Today is the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and disciples and inspired them with such courage and faith that, though previously timorous, they suddenly feared no material suffering or persecution as they preached the Gospel.
Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, the great American archbishop, theologian, and TV personality of the previous century, described the work of salvation, including the Passion Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit, as “the procession of Divine Life.” Today we commemorate an important event in that procession: Pentecost.
Jesus’s closest earthly friends and His Mother were praying for nine days in the room where the Last Supper occurred after Christ’s ascension to Heaven, ending His earthly life. “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting,” the Bible tells us. “And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak.” (Acts of the Apostles 2:2-4)
Then Peter, now the visible head of the Church since Christ had ascended to Heaven, the keeper of the keys for the Divine King (Matthew 16) in the tradition of the Old Testament Jewish Kingdom, stood up with the other apostles and proclaimed the gospel. Asked by the crowd of Jews present in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost — commemorating the giving of the Torah to Moses — what they must do, Peter answered, “Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 2:38) Some three thousand were baptized.
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That is the scriptural passage on which Fulton Sheen was reflecting. And like any good cleric and theologian, Sheen saw Pentecost not in isolation, but as one in a series of theophanies or revelations of God to us in salvation history. “Assuming a human nature from the Blessed Mother, the procession of Divine Life moved on the earth in the Person of Jesus Christ and finally wound its way up the hill of Calvary, and on Good Friday a soldier struck a lance into the side of that Sacred Humanity and blood and water poured forth: blood the price of our Redemption, and water the symbol of our regeneration,” Sheen said.
He continued by linking Calvary to Pentecost, “The Son sent by His Father now returns to the Father, and from the Eternal Godhead the procession of life moves on as the Father and the Son send their Holy Spirit full of Truth and Love to the Mystical Body on the day of Pentecost, striking that Mystical Body as the brightness of the sun striking a prism splits up into the seven rays of the spectrum.”
It is a beautiful image to think of the Divine Sun split into seven rays of light through the coming of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s followers — and indeed there are traditionally listed seven gifts of Holy Spirit. Sheen ended, “The procession of Divine Life broke up into the seven sacraments to flood the members of that Body with Divine Life for the seven states from the cradle to the grave. The procession of Life moves on as Christ once more walks the earth in His Mystical Body, the Church.”
We are inheritors of the apostles, we too will receive the Holy Spirit if we follow God’s commands and participate in the life of His Church. The procession of life moves on, and we move joyfully with it.
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