Today we celebrate ‘the Feast of the Pentecost,” with this Feast we come to the end of the Easter celebration. Now, the Feast of Pentecost was one of the most phenomenal and important events in all of history. There are several reasons why this event was so important.
· It was “the coming of the Holy Spirit.”
· It was the birth of the Church.
· It was the corporate filling of the Holy Spirit, of the body of believers with the promised
presence of Christ.
· It was the personal filling of the individual believer by the Holy Spirit.
· It was the Presence and Power of God coming upon the believers, gifting, and equipping them to proclaim the glorious message of salvation to men.
Above all the Feast of Pentecost was God’s providence. This Feast needs to be understood in order to see God’s providence at work. Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after the Passover. It was also known as the “Day of the First Fruits” (Num 28:26), or the “Feast of Weeks” (Ex 34:22), or the “Feast of Harvest.” Pentecost was a glorious day of celebration, a day when the people were to heap praise and thanksgiving upon God. There were three particular reasons for which they were to thank God.
1.The harvest of the fields. The very name of the Feast says it is a celebration of the “First Fruits.” It was celebrated when the first fruits of the harvest began to come in, which was around the first of June.
2.The Exodus, the deliverance of the nation Israel from Egyptian bondage (Dt.16:12). The people were to thank God for the day He delivered them out of slavery.
3. The giving of the law upon Mt. Sinai (Ex.19-20). This was the day the people were constituted as a nation, as the great nation of Israel. They were to live as God’s very own people upon earth. They were to thank God for Himself and for His law.
It is important for all of us to note that all three events were fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit. When ‘the day of Pentecost came’ the first fruits were born- the church itself and the first harvest of souls. The new beginning that is, the filling of the Holy Spirit, began fifty days after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The coming of the Holy Spirit had a very specific purpose. The Holy Spirit was to live and work within the heart of man, to deliver and free him from the enslavements of this world- from sin, death, and hell. The coming of the Holy Spirit was the birth of the church, the new people of God.
New Assignment
Dear parishioners, I would like to inform, all of you that Our Archbishop Allen Vigneron has asked me to become the Administrator of St. Michael Parish, Monroe. I shall be moving to the new parish on August 1, 2020. It is not easy to leave all of you and move to a new place. I consider it as a plan of God. Let us continue to pray for each other during this pandemic. I shall thank all of you in my next article.
God’s blessings and a Happy Feast of Pentecost.
Stay safe.
Fr. Kishore Babu Battu SAC