In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we are gathered to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, one of the
oldest feasts in the calendar of the Church, even older than
Christmas or Easter, in fact. The festival which we here commemorate
goes back all the way to the time of Moses and the giving of the Law.
And yet it has remained, handed down through successive generations
even to our own time, and for untold ages yet to come.
The Feast of Pentecost was originally enacted to celebrate the
harvest of the winter wheat. The word “pentecost” is Greek for
“fifty”, referring to the fifty days after the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, after which the Pentecost was celebrated.
Traditionally, this festival also had the added significance of
commemorating the Lord's giving the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai
fifty days after the Exodus from Egypt.
