I have always been intrigued, a reader asks, by the Holy Spirit coming down on the apostles on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. What exactly was this feast and is there any connection between it and our celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit?
This is indeed an intriguing question and I am happy to answer it. It is good for all Catholics to know the history and customs of the Jewish people, since they are our ancestors in the faith. After all, Jesus, Mary and Joseph formed part of the Jewish people.
The Old Testament prepares for the New and contains numerous prophecies of Christ. We recall how Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets”, explained to the two disciples of Emmaus “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk 24: 27). It is in the Old Testament that we find the answer to your question.
As you say, the day on which the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles was the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which had brought to Jerusalem “Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). What were the Jews celebrating on that day and why was it called Pentecost?
The name Pentecost is Greek, meaning fiftieth, and it was the name given to the Jewish feast by the Greek-speaking Jews. On that day the Jews were celebrating two different events.
The first and original feast celebrated the end of the harvest (cf Ex 23:16) and so it was called Hag ha-Bikkurim (the Festival of the First Fruits). It was also known as Shavu’ot, the Festival of Weeks (cf Ex 34:22; Deut 16:10).
For that feast, as for the Passover and for another harvest feast at the end of the year, all males were to present themselves before the Lord (cf Ex 23:17; 34:23). This explains why so many people from all over that part of the world were in Jerusalem.
But why was the harvest feast also called Pentecost, and what does it have to do with the number 50? The answer is found in the book of Leviticus.
There, God tells the Israelites that once they entered the promised land they were to bring a sheaf of the first fruits of their harvest to the priest and wave it before God on the day after the Sabbath, that is on Sunday.
He goes on: “And you shall count from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven full weeks shall they be, counting 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall present a cereal offering of new grain to the Lord” (Lev 23:10-15). Because it was celebrated 50 days after the wave offering, it was called Pentecost and, because it was seven weeks afterward, it was also called the Festival of Weeks.
The feast was celebrated on a Sunday, the day on which we celebrate it today. And it was to be celebrated for all time: “And you shall make proclamation on the same day; you shall hold a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work; it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations (Lev 23:21). In fact, the Jews continue to celebrate Shavu’ot to this day.
Although the text from Leviticus does not say so expressly, the Sabbath of the wave offering was the first one after the celebration of Passover, so that the 50th day closed both the harvest season and the Passover season. This is significant for us today as our feast of Pentecost closes the Paschal, or Easter, season, just as it did for the Jews.
The second event celebrated in the Jewish Pentecost feast was the giving of the Torah, or the Law, to Moses on Mount Sinai. For this reason it was called Hag Matan Torateinu (the Festival of the Giving of our Torah).
According to the book of Exodus (cf Ex 19:1), God gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai 50 days after the first Passover, when the Israelites left Egypt. The Jews see a close connection between the Passover and the giving of the Law.
Just as in the Passover they were freed from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt, so the Torah freed them spiritually from their slavery to idolatry and immorality.
On the night before the feast, it is customary for the Jews to stay up the entire night studying the Torah and then to pray as early as possible in the morning.
Why did the Holy Spirit come down on the apostles precisely on this feast? Without presuming to know the mind of God, just as the giving of the Torah made the Israelites the people of God with a particular religion, so the coming of the Holy Spirit gave “birth” to the Church of the new people of God.
And just as the Jewish Pentecost closes the Passover season, so the coming of the Holy Spirit closes the Paschal or Easter season. Finally, the fact that so many Jews were in Jerusalem for the feast meant that the apostles could preach the faith to a much larger number of people from many countries, leading to the conversion of some three thousand that very day (cf Acts 2:41).