This Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost, the beginning and birthday of the Church, is an annual feast that closes out the Easter season 50 days after the resurrection is celebrated. The word Pentecost has its root in the Greek word that means five. It is also a word that was used in Judaism during the time of Jesus, as Pentecost was the word used for the harvest festival Shavuot.

The Christian celebration has its origins in the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles, in Acts 2:1-12, where the early disciples experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. Acts also states, “While staying with them, Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’” (Acts 1:4-5).

This Third Person of the Holy Trinity is known by a variety of names in Christian theology; one name is Paraclete. The name Paraclete means educator, intercessor, teacher, helper and comforter. These names describe how the Holy Spirit is present in the Church and is present with God’s people. The Spirit is sent to remind us of all that Jesus said and taught. The Holy Spirit makes everything possible.

Pentecost is the feast of the birth of the Church. When the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit they abandoned fear and began to preach the Word in a way that all peoples gathered together from many nations and languages could understand. The Church became a unified, truly international spiritual body of believers. St. Augustine likened the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church to that of the soul in the human body: 

"What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church. The Holy Spirit does in the whole Church what the soul does in all the members of one body." (Sermon 267,4)

This same Holy Spirit is the source of unitas (unity) at Villanova College. Our community can be thought of as a small church within the Catholic Church. We are one body made up of many distinct members, but we support one another in charity (caritas). This bond of charity, our soul, is the Holy Spirit, reinforced in us through our celebration of the Mass and through our daily prayers. 

In the traditional Catholic hymn, Veni, Creator Spiritus  (Come, Holy Ghost, creator blest) in the second stanza, we call the Holy Spirit “altissimi donum dei”, meaning “the highest gift of God.” The Holy Spirit is God experienced in charity. The love we bear for one another is the Holy Spirit acting in us, drawing us into a more perfect unity. It is a unity that extends beyond students and staff, to parents, alumni, friends and benefactors, living and deceased. In this unity no one is excluded.

Enjoy your weekend,
Fr. Robert Dodaro