“When the Time for Pentecost Was Fulfilled”

Reflections on Pentecost as the Culmination of the Easter Season of Fifty Days

Year B

Fr. Kurt Belsole, O.S.B.

May 22, 2015

Revised: May 19, 2018

“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,

 they were all together in one place. Alleluia.”

“Dum complerentur dies Pentecostes,

erant omnes pariter in eodem loco, alleluia.”

This great antiphon for the first psalm of Evening Prayer I of Pentecost provides us with the occasion to reflect on what it means for the time for Pentecost to be fulfilled.  A simple glance back at Christ bringing the paschal mystery to fulfillment and looking again at just some of the gospels that the Church has proclaimed to us in the sacred liturgy during the Easter Season this year can give us a taste of what it means for the time for Pentecost to be fulfilled.

Easter Sunday

  • “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?  He has been raised; he is not here.”

Second Sunday of Easter

  • Jesus came and stood in their midst and said: “Peace be with you.”
  • He showed them his hands and his side.
  • The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
  • He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit . . . whose sins you forgive, are forgiven them.”
  • Thomas said to him: “My Lord and my God.”

Third Sunday of Easter

  • He stood in their midst . . . they were incredulous with joy.
  • “Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
  • He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
  • “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”

Fourth Sunday of Easter

  • “I am the good shepherd.  A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”
  • “I know mine and mine know me.”
  • “I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again.”

Fifth Sunday of Easter

  • “I am the vine.  You are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.”
  • “In this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Sixth Sunday of Easter

  • “As the Father loves me, so also do I love you.  Remain in my love.”
  • “This is my commandment; love one another as I have loved you.”
  • “There is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
  • “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
  • “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go forth and bear fruit that will last.”
  • “This I command you: love one another.”

Ascension

  • “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
  • The Lord Jesus . . . was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.
  • They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word through accompanying signs.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

  • “Heavenly Father . . . may they be one just as we are one.”
  •  “I say this in the world that they may share my joy completely.”
  • “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.”
  • “Consecrate them in truth.”
  • “As you sent me into the world, so I send them into the world.”
  • “I consecrate myself for them.”

And this all crescendos to the great gospel of the Mass for the Vigil of Pentecost:

  • Jesus stood up and cried out saying: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  As is said in Scripture, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.


So these are just some of the magnalia Dei, the marvelous works of God, that we have heard proclaimed and that we have celebrated during the fifty days of the Easter season—while the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled—“he has been raised”, peace, the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord, sins are forgiven, they were incredulous with joy, remain in my love, I chose you, love one another, rivers of living water will flow from within him.

Blessed Pentecost!

[P.S.: I realize that the translation in the breviary translates the antiphon as “On the day of Pentecost they had all gathered together in one place, alleluia.”  But the translation of the same text in the first reading of Mass for Pentecost Sunday is much more faithful: “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together” (Acts 2:1).]