Pentecost

Dear Friends in Christ,

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. From the Greek word for fifty, Pentecost falls fifty days after Easter, and marks the end of the Easter season and the beginning Ordinary time, so called because not much happens over summer and so things around Church are somewhat boring… Just kidding!!! Ordinary Time is so-called because the Sundays that fall in it are numbered by ordinal, or sequential, numbers.

The Feast of Pentecost commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the first followers of Jesus and is often called the birthday of the Church, as it that enabled them to speak the Good News to everyone irrespective of language and gave them the courage to take it out into the world and spread it to the people they encountered. The Jewish feast called Pentecost in the account of this event in the Book of Acts was Shavuot, a ho0lidy that commemorates the single most important event in the history of Judaism – the giving of the Torah (the first five books of the Jewish bible) to Moses at Mount Sinai. It is more commonly known as Sukkot, or the feast of booths, and was one of the three major pilgrim festivals in Jewish tradition, when all Jewish males were required to travel to the holy Temple in Jerusalem. To learn more about this Jewish festival, what it looked like in Jesus’ time and how it has evolved until today, see here.

In the Episcopal Church it is a major feast and is one of the four occasions during the year when the Sacrament of Baptism is celebrated. While we do not have any baptisms at Saint Anna’s this Sunday, we will renew the vows made at our baptism and receive a sprinkling (or maybe a splash!) of holy water by asperges. And we have a dove kite! So join us this Sunday to celebrate the Spirit and welcome her into your heats. And don’t forget to wear red!

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+