The Birth of a New Movement

"At Easter the garden of the Church is abloom with beautiful blossoms, Christians newly baptized and confirmed. By Pentecost these blossom have developed and have matured into fruit, and now hang heavily upon the trees. The Gardener who tends the trees is our Savior Jesus Christ: the Sun that ripens the fruit is the Holy Spirit.”      - Dr. Pius Parsch, A Year of Grace

This past Sunday the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost as the finale of the Easter season; yet it also marked a great beginning - the Holy Spirit's life in the Church on earth.

Pentecost was a Jewish feast, held fifty days after Passover. The celebration was two-fold: the commemoration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai and a thanksgiving for the grain harvest. Fittingly, the Holy Spirit descended on this day to seal the giving of the New Law and initiate the harvest of souls.

Traditionally, we say the Church was born on Pentecost. This birth was witnessed and visible, not only to those directly visited by the Holy Spirit – those leaders of this new movement – but also to “outsiders.” Hearing the mighty roar, those many peoples gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast, rush to the site of the disturbance and become witnesses to the great marvel of fearful, simple and unimportant men made bold and zealously asking others to follow them on this new venture. Humanly inexplicable, yet undeniably evident.

From this point, the Church becomes a visible institution with leaders, a governing body, a mission – to proclaim Christ and his teachings to all people and all nations – and rules to assist that mission and assure the integrity of its mission. The new venture, spearheaded by a handful of twelve unremarkable men, takes firm hold in the world and becomes one of longest surviving and most influential in human history. It spreads without an Alexander the Great, a Genghis Khan, a Julius Caesar. How does this happen when every other empire or institution has needed a gifted leader, armies or vast wealth to last even a bare 200 years? We, of course, already know why from the words of the Pharisee Gamaliel, “ If this is man’s design or man’s undertaking, it will be overthrown; if it is God’s, you will have no power to overthrow it.” (Acts 5:39) The Church is a divine, yet a very human institution and therefore it is inextricably entwined with the history of the world and there is no good telling of history unless this is acknowledged. 

"The followers of Jesus and missionaries like St. Paul brought a new hope to the empires great and small, rich and poor. Life without fear was promised to all who believed in Jesus and accepted him as Lord... In light of this hope, civilization could follow paths of thought and invention not possible before. Individuals could develop ideas and practices that had not occured to anyone caught in the old worship of nature." (Light to the Nations, Part One, pg 42) Follow Catholic Textbooks via Email