Pentecost:

1

• Pentecost
• an Outpouring of Divine Life
• General audience of July 22, 1989

2

• The Pentecost event in the upper room of
  Jerusalem was a special divine manifestation.
• We have already considered its principal external
  elements
• "the sound of a mighty wind,"
• the "tongues of fire"
• above those assembled in the upper room,
• and finally the
• "speaking in other languages."

3

• All these elements indicate not only the presence
  of the Holy Spirit, but also his special descent
  on those present,
• his "self-giving," which produced in them a
  visible transformation, as is evident from the
  text of the Acts of the Apostles
• (21-12).

4

• Pentecost closes the long cycle of divine
  manifestations in the Old Testament,
• among which the most important was that to Moses
  on Mount Sinai.

5

• From the beginning of this series of
  pneumatological reflections,
• we have mentioned the link between the Pentecost
  event and Christ's Pasch, especially under the
  aspect of his departure to the Father through his
  death on the cross, his resurrection and
  ascension.
• Pentecost is the fulfillment of Jesus'
  announcement to the apostles on the day before
  his passion, during his
• "farewell discourse"
• in the upper room of Jerusalem.

6

• On that occasion Jesus had spoken of the
• "new Paraclete"
• "I will pray the Father, and he will give you
  another Paraclete, to be with you forever, even
  the spirit of truth"
• (Jn 1416).
• Jesus emphasized
• "When I go, I will send him to you"
• (Jn 167).
• Speaking of his departure through his redemptive
  death on the cross, Jesus had said
• "Yet a little while and the world will see me no
  more, but you will see me because I live also"
• (Jn 1419).

7

• Here we have a new aspect of the link between the
  Pasch and Pentecost
• "I live."
• Jesus was speaking of the resurrection.
• "You will live"
• the life, which will be manifested and confirmed
  in my resurrection,
• will become your life.
• The transmission of this life, manifested in the
  mystery of Christ's Pasch, is effected
  definitively at Pentecost.

8

• Indeed, Christ's words echo the concluding part
  of Ezekiel's prophecy in which God promised
• "I shall put my Spirit within you, and you shall
  live"
• (3714).
• Therefore Pentecost is linked organically to the
  Pasch.
• It pertains to Christ's paschal mystery
• "I live and you will live."

9

• By virtue of the coming of the Holy Spirit,
• Christ's prayer in the upper room is also
  fulfilled
• "Father,
• the hour has come
• glorify your Son
• that the Son may glorify you, since you have
  given him power over all flesh,
• to give eternal life to all whom you have given
  him"
• (Jn 171-2).

10

• In the paschal mystery, Jesus Christ is the
  principle of this life.
• The Holy Spirit gives this life, drawing on the
  redemption effected by Christ
• "He will take what is mine"
• (Jn 1614).
• Jesus himself had said
• "It is the Spirit that gives life"
• (Jn 663).
• Similarly St. Paul proclaims that
• "the written code kills,
• but the Spirit gives life"
• (2 Cor 36).

11

• Pentecost radiates the truth professed by the
  Church in the words of the creed
• "I believe in the Holy Spirit,
• the Lord, the giver of life."
• Together with the Pasch,
• Pentecost is the climax of the divine Trinity's
  economy of salvation in human history.

12

• The apostles were assembled on the day of
  Pentecost in the upper room of Jerusalem
• together with Mary, the mother of Jesus,
• and other "disciples" of the Lord,
• men and women.
• They were the first to experience the fruits of
  Christ's resurrection.

13

• For them Pentecost was the day of resurrection,
  of new life in the Holy Spirit.
• It was a spiritual resurrection which we can
  discern in the transformation of the apostles in
  the course of all those days
• from the Friday of Christ's passion,
• through Easter day,
• until the day of Pentecost.

14

• The capture of the Master and his death on the
  cross were a terrible blow for them, from which
  they found it difficult to recover.

15

• This explains their mistrust and doubts on
  receiving news of the resurrection, even when
  they met the risen one.
• The Gospels refer to it several times
• "They would not believe"
• (Mk 1611)
• "some doubted"
• (Mt 2817).

16

• Jesus himself rebuked them gently
• "Why are you troubled and why do questionings
  arise in your hearts?"
• (Lk 2438).
• He tried to convince them about his identity, by
  showing them that he was not
• "a spirit" but had
• "flesh and bones."
• It was for this reason that he even ate a piece
  of broiled fish before them
• (cf. Lk 2437-43).

17

• The Pentecost event definitively leads the
  disciples to overcome this attitude of mistrust
• the truth of the resurrection fully pervades
  their minds and wins over their wills.
• Truly then
• "out of their hearts flow rivers of living water"
  
• (cf. Jn 738),
• as Jesus himself had foretold in a metaphorical
  sense when speaking of the Holy Spirit.

18

• Through the work of the Holy Spirit the apostles
  and the other disciples became an
• "Easter people,"
• believers in and witnesses to Christ's
  resurrection.
• Without reserve, they made the truth of that
  decisive event their own.

19

• From the day of Pentecost they were the heralds
  of
• "the mighty works of God"
• (magnalia Dei) (Acts 211).
• They were made capable of it from within.
• The Holy Spirit effected their interior
  transformation by virtue of the new life that
  derived from Christ in his resurrection and now
  infused by the new Paraclete into his followers.

20

• We can apply to this transformation what Isaiah
  prophesied metaphorically
• "until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
  and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and
  the fruitful field is deemed a forest"
• (Is 3215).

21

• Truly on Pentecost the gospel truth is radiant
  with light
• God "is not the God of the dead, but of the
  living"
• (Mt 2232),
• "for all live to him"
• (Lk 2038).

22

• The Pentecost theophany opens to all the prospect
  of newness of life.
• That event is the beginning of God's new
  "self-giving" to humanity.
• The apostles are the sign and pledge not only of
  the "new Israel,"
• but also of the "new creation" effected by the
  paschal mystery.

23

• As St. Paul writes
• "One man's act of righteousness leads to
  acquittal and life for all men....
• Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more"
  
• (Rom 518-20).
• This victory of life over death,
• of grace over sin,
• achieved by Christ,
• works in humanity by means of the Holy Spirit.
• Through him it brings to fruition in our hearts
  the mystery of redemption
• (cf. Rom 55 Gal 522).

24

• Pentecost is the beginning of the process of
  spiritual renewal,
• which realizes the economy of salvation in its
  historical and eschatological dimension,
• casting itself over all creation.

25

• It is a new beginning in relation to the first
  original beginning of God's salvific self-giving,
  which is identified with the mystery of creation
  itself.
• 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the
  earth...and the Spirit of God (ruah Elohim) was
  moving over the face of the waters'
• (Gen 11f.).

26

• This biblical concept of creation includes not
  only the call to existence of the very being of
  the cosmos, that is to say,
• the giving of existence,
• but also the presence of the Spirit of God in
  creation, that is to say,
• the beginning of God's salvific
  self-communication to the things he creates.

27

• This is true first of all concerning man,
• who has been created in the image and likeness of
  God"
• (Encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et
  Vivificantem n. 12).
• At Pentecost the "new beginning" of God's
  salvific self-giving is united to the paschal
  mystery,
• source of new life.