Pentecost Sunday: Are Your Eyes Looking Toward the Holy Spirit? by John Grondelski
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El Greco, “Pentecost,” ca. 1600 (photo: Public Domain)
By John Grondelski, National Catholic Register,
John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. He is especially interested in moral theology and the thought of John Paul II. [Note: All views expressed in his National Catholic Register contributions are exclusively the author’s.]
Next to Easter and Christmas, Pentecost is the Church’s most important feast. That’s true not just for the liturgical calendar, but for our spiritual lives. Christmas marks Christ’s coming in the flesh, “for us and for our salvation.” Easter marks Christ’s triumph over sin and death — none of us must be damned unless we freely want to be. Pentecost marks Christ’s sending of his Spirit to enable his Church to carry on his work of salvation — of turning people from sin and to God — until he “comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
Liturgically, Pentecost closes the Easter season. Seven was a number of perfection in ancient Israel (7×7=49). Perfected perfection plus one: “the joy of Easter” reaches its apex….
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Border_USA_Mexico-1536x723. Fence between San Diego's border patrol offices in California (left) and Tijuana, Mexico. Militarized border controls that prevent people from the Global South from moving to the Global North are cited as an example of global apartheid[1]. Public domain. This image is a work of a U.S. military or Department of Defense employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States.