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Catholic Bible Study
Glorious Mysteries: Pentecost
00:18:23
Have you ever wanted to grow in your understanding and devotion to the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary? Join Dr. Ben Akers and professors from the Augustine Institute Graduate School as they walk through these Biblical mysteries and seek to grow in understanding and love for Christ through them.
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- [00:00]
A
Hello. Welcome to form NOW's series on the glorious mysteries. We're going through a Bible study. We're going through Scriptures, the New Testament, and the Old Testament on the different mysteries that we pray in the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesdays and on Sundays. And my guest today is Dr. Mark Ishak, a professor of scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. Thanks for joining me, Mark.
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B
It's great to be with you.
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And we're talking about the third glorious mystery, which is the Mystery of Pentecost. So where can we find Pentecost in Scripture? Yeah.
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B
So a lot of times people think of Pentecost as a Christian feast, which it is, but it actually starts as a Jewish feast.
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A
Oh, it does? Okay. Right.
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It's the Feast of Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, which we can find in the Old Testament back in the Book of Leviticus.
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Why is it called the Feast of Weeks?
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So the Feast of Shavuot comes seven weeks after the Feast of Passover. And you'll notice that our liturgical calendar is set up in the exact same way.
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Right.
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B
Our Passover, or Pascha or Easter.
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Right.
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Is seven weeks prior to Pentecost dust. And so it's part of the. This sort of connection between agriculture and worship and liturgy in the Old Testament. Right. I think it's where you have the wheat harvest. Right. And you bring sheaves to the temple. But what's significant about it from the perspective of biblical history in Acts chapter two, is that it's a pilgrimage feast. It's one of the three pilgrimage feasts with Passover and the Feast of Booths, which takes place in the fall. So you have three different feasts where all the men of Israel would come to Jerusalem to celebrate. And that's referred to in the text. Right. You have all these people gathered together at the time of Jesus's trial, which happens at Passover. And then they're all regathered back at Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost.
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A
So they would often go home. They would go home if they weren't in Jerusalem, and they would make it, you know, come seven or seven weeks later to right now.
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B
I mean, the thing to remember about the time of Jesus is that at this point, Jews live all over the world. So there are only a handful of Jews that actually live in the Holy Land and are able to do the pilgrimage feasts. But there's allusion to all these people from all over the world, Right. From Cappadocia and Mesopotamia and Pontus in Asia and Phrygia, Pamphylia. So there are Jews that have traveled very long distances to get to the feast. So we don't think that most Jews in most places in far flung regions would always travel, but maybe it'd be like a once in a lifetime pilgrimage or maybe they'd come once a year in ancient, ancient times when everybody lived in the land. It was a lot easier to have a kind of localized feast like that.
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A
Okay. So it's an Old Testament feast, and then it's going to take on new meaning in the Christian economy of salvation. And where we are in the text, we're in Acts of the apostles and we're 10 days after the Ascension. So Christ ascends into heaven on a Thursday. And as Dr. Prothero and I talked about last time, he says, wait, I want you to go to the ends of the earth, but wait first.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And wait for the. He says, the power of God to come upon you. Yeah, yeah.
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B
And I think this is something that's really helpful about Pentecost, is that it's like a connection point between biblical revelation and our experience. There's something really important about not just knowing the sort of objective teachings of the faith, but coming to, you know, experience God's presence, experience the love of Jesus. Right. Experience the power of the Holy Spirit. And that it's that at that experiential moment that sort of like the faith comes alive for us or we experience like a kind of conversion. And while, you know, we can, we can be at church and we can experience the sacraments and we can, you know, go and whatever, but there's a way in which the Lord wants to penetrate our hearts. Right. And draw us to himself. And Pentecost, I think, represents that for us. Right. That it's a moment of interior conversion, but it's also a moment of empowerment, Right. Where the disciples are drawn closer to God, but they're also given special graces, special gifts of the Holy Spirit to go out and actually do the work of evangelization. So to me, that's really important.
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A
No, that. That is. And it's just as you're talking, reminds me that it seems like the analog in the sacramental life would be the confirmation.
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Yeah, of course.
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Where the Holy Spirit comes upon us and empowers us and emboldens us to give witness.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's, you know, what the bishop says when he, know, lays his hand on you. Right. Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Right. That's the whole point. Right. Is that you're receiving the presence of God, you're receiving this infusion or this outpouring of the Holy Spirit in order that you might be empowered to, on the one hand, live out the faith and, you know, have the grace of final perseverance, but also that you might be able to bring the gospel to other people. And we can't do that on our own.
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A
Right. And we're going to see that these apostles on the, you know, on the day of the Resurrection are still locking the doors because they're afraid that they might get arrested and dragged out and taken. And there's a certain fear that they have. And after this scene, they're going to be bold. They're going to preach boldly, and they're going to. And then. I love reading through Acts of the Apostles in the Easter season because they just do amazing things. Yeah.
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B
Well, speaking of, we should probably read the first few verses just so we can get a sense of it in our minds.
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If you're following along, we're in Acts, chapter two. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
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B
So one of the things that's not easy to pick up from Acts or really even from the Old Testament, is what the Feast of Shavuot was all about. What was the Feast of Pentecost about? And only by doing some very careful counting of days and weeks and so forth in the Book of Exodus, between Exodus chapter 12 and Exodus chapter 19. Do you realize that the very first Pentecost was actually at Mount Sinai when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses in Exodus chapter 20? Because it takes place seven weeks after the first Passover. So why is this significant? Because if you think of Pentecost as a moment of God's revelation, a moment of theophany where God makes himself manifest, it's recalling God making himself manifest to the people back in the Book of Exodus at Mount Sinai, where God appears on the mountain as fire and smoke, and the whole people hear his voice, which sounds like a trumpet, and then they get scared, right? And they say, moses, you know, you can go talk to God from now on.
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We're not gonna meet.
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We don't wanna hear that scary voice again.
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Right.
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But it's a similar moment of Revelation here in Pentecost where God's presence is manifest not just to one person, not just to a small group of people, but it's manifest to everyone. And this is really the theme of Acts chapter 2. Especially as Peter's speech unfolds and he starts interpreting the event as it's happening, right? He's saying, we're not drunk, as you suppose, right? It's too early for that. You know, the apostles don't drink in the morning, right? So what is happening? Right? And he starts quoting Joel, chapter two. And you're thinking, joel, chapter two. I don't know anything about the Book of Joel. I know they're locusts or something, right? But why is he quoting Joel, chapter two? And the quote goes like this. In the last days, it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. You're thinking, gosh, that sounds really familiar. But I'm not really sure where that's coming from. This idea of pouring out my spirit on all flesh. And you really have to go back to numbers, chapter 11.
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Okay, so we're back in the wilderness.
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So In Numbers, chapter 11, Moses gathers together all the elders of Israel, the 70 elders, and the Holy Spirit falls upon all of them. And there are a couple of them that are late to the prayer meeting, right? They don't show up and they start prophesying in the camp. And then Joshua runs to Moses and says, you know, they're upset, right?
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Tell him to stop. Tell them. Yeah.
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He's like, you gotta stop these guys. And Moses says something that gets interpreted as a prophecy, right?
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Yeah.
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Would that all the people of God would prophesy, right? Would that all of them would have the Holy Spirit. So maybe we could just go back and take a look at that. Sure.
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Numbers 11. We're in numbers, chapter 11.
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He says, are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them. So when Joel chapter two says, in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. It's seen as like an extension of Moses prophecy for numbers 11, right? Saying this is going to happen. And when it happens, it's not just. There's not just gonna be one prophet, right? All of God's people will prophesy, all of them will hear his voice. It's very similar to that passage in Jeremiah, right? Where Jeremiah talks about how the new covenant will be Interior. Right. It's not just gonna be a kind of external thing that we memorize. Right. It's gonna be in our very hearts, like written on the tablets of our hearts. And we won't have to ask each other about who the Lord is, because we'll all know the Lord. It's the same concept, Right. All of God's people will be prophets. And so Peter, as the events are unfolding, recognizes what's happening, Right. He sees this is the fulfillment of Moses prophecy. This is the fulfillment of Joel, chapter two. This is the fulfillment of what Jesus said in Acts 1:7. Right. You're going to receive power from on high. So the Lord had just spoken to them. Sorry, it's chapter one, verse eight. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now, one of the things that is really easy for us to miss because we're Trinitarian believers, we talk about the Holy Spirit all of the time, is what did the first century Jews think the Holy Spirit was?
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Yeah.
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And if you go back into the Old Testament to passages like Joel 2 and other passages where that phrase holy Spirit comes up, it's the Holy Spirit of prophecy, Right. It's the Holy Spirit of hearing God's voice. Right. And of course, we hear the Holy Spirit in the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the other prophets who speak on behalf of God. But that's really what people are longing for, right? Is for the voice of God. And there is a real sense in Hellenistic Judaism in the time of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit was missing. So there's even reference to this in the books of Maccabees, where after the temple is cleansed and restored and they rebuild the altar, there's kind of. There are a few, like, ritual problems, right. They have to tear down the old altar because it's been desecrated. But they're not really sure what to do with the stones that were holy but have now been desecrated. So they pile them up and it says, until a prophet should arrive.
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Right.
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Arise to tell them what to do with the stones. There is no prophet in the time of the Maccabees to give them God's voice. And then there's a later text in the Talmud, which is a sort of Jewish source that's reflecting on scripture and the ritual law that says that one of the imperfections of the second Temple, this is the temple that Jesus would have worshiped at. Is that it was missing the Holy Spirit. The second Temple was missing the Holy Spirit of prophecy. There's no prophet during the time of Herod the Great. There's no prophet walking around in Jerusalem at that time. And so this moment of the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles and turning them from mere apostles into prophets. Right. Is a restoration of the Spirit of prophecy that had been lost.
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That's incredible. So it would have been. Does this have something to do when they build the temple and they consecrate the temple and the rabbis are talking about the Spirit not being present? Does this have something to do with the first Temple that was built with the glory cloud that comes and fills the temple as a sign of presence?
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Yeah. Well, so this gets a little bit complicated. That same text from the Talmud mentions a few other things that are missing from the second Temple. Right. So one of them is the Shekinah. Right. One of them is the Ark of the Covenant. One is the Urim and Thummim, which is one way of hearing God's voice. And I'm forgetting one of them. Oh, the other one is the sacred fire, of course, which burns on the altar. So these things, these five things are missing from the second Temple. And so in the Rabbi's opinion, the second Temple is. Is lesser than the first Temple.
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Sure.
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But what I think is really fascinating is if you look in Acts 1 and 2, you start to find some of those things. You find the Holy Spirit, you find the sacred fire, you find Mary, the Ark of the Covenant, the casting of lots. You find the casting of lots. Right. The Urim and Thummim. And you get the sense of the glory cloud with the strong, mighty rushing wind that fills the entire place where they were. Now, I want to talk about one other thing here. Where were they?
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It says in my translation, it says one place.
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Yeah.
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So what does that mean?
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And mine says the entire house.
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Entire house. Okay.
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Okay. So this is an open question because Christian tradition places the apostles back in the upper room.
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Okay. Where Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
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Exactly. Right. The cenacle. So you can go to Jerusalem. You can visit the upper room. Right. And tradition holds that this is the place. But if you look really carefully in the text, it doesn't say that they were there. It doesn't say they were in the upper room. And in fact, where do we find them? At the end of chapter two. Right.
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They did all the temple together. During the temple.
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In verse 46, they're in the Temple.
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Right.
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Day by day, they attend the temple together. Okay.
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And it says 3,000 people were added to their number that day.
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Exactly.
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That means a big number had to hear.
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So the traditional interpretation says they're in the upper room, they have this experience, and then they sort of like, walk on over to the temple and start preaching there.
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Okay.
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But a lot of Bible scholars think that the reference to house indicates the temple and that the apostles are actually gathered in the temple. And you notice they're sitting, you're thinking, well, that seems like a weird thing to do in the temple. But the temple is like a large complex. It's not just like one building. And part of that complex is like the portico of Solomon, which will come up later in the book of Acts, which has a lot of stairs and things. And people would sit there and talk and discuss, and it was shaded. So I'm thinking that the apostles are likely in the temple when this is happening. And this makes perfect sense of the kind of sacramental typology here. If it really is a restoration of the true temple now composed of these living stones, who are the apostles? Right. And all of those things that were missing from the second temple are now being restored in them, then it makes perfect sense in terms of the continuity of divine revelation and salvation history for them to be present in the temple when this is happening. And as far as, like, the action in Acts chapter two goes, it makes even more sense. Right. They're preaching to hundreds and hundreds of people, and then thousands of people get baptized. I think they're in the temple when Pentecost occurs.
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That's a beautiful interpretation. I love it. And all the people that they're talking about are there, that are gathered. That's where they would go and gather. This is one place that everyone could gather is the temple, although different nations represented. Yes.
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And it's where Jesus would preach, too. Right. Jesus would teach and preach in the temple. Now, he's not, like, standing by the altar, probably in the kind of outer court, the court of the Gentiles. Right. Where people would gather and talk and have discussions. Bible studies. Right.
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Yeah. That's incredible. I wonder what. Yeah. What the guards that day were thinking and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the high priests watching this. Wow, that's amazing. So in the time we have remaining, what are other things that we can look for in the passage that can help us pray this more fruitfully?
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B
Yeah. Well, if we think about it as a mystery of the rosary. Right. One of the beautiful images that's come out of the tradition of meditating upon this is of all of the apostles gathered and the Virgin Mary right in the middle of the apostles. And there's like this, like, fire is coming down on her, right. And then sort of spreading out to all of the apostles. So I think in this way, right. The church has conceived of Pentecost as a deeply Marian event, Right. And why is that the case? I think. I think there are maybe two things to consider in terms of Our Lady, Right. One is that, as one of my friends put it once, she's more church than anyone else, Right. Like, she's like the perfect Christian, the perfect disciple. And so there's a way in which she embodies the church, Right. Mary, mother of the church, she's now been declared. Right. So she embodies what it means to be church, and so it makes sense for her to be there. And I think also she exhibits for us what it means to be a. Like a receiver of the Holy Spirit, Right. Our relationship with God is not one of pure activity where we like, sort of boss God around, although we try a lot in prayer, right? Oh, Lord, do this for me. Do this for me. Do this for me.
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Right.
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In fact, it's supposed to be a kind of receptive mode, right. Lord, what do you want to speak to me? Right. How do you want to change my life? What are you going to do in me? You know, help me to listen to you. And I think Mary embodies that spirit of receptivity which we all need in relation to the Holy Spirit.
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A
Oh, that's beautiful. So as we pray this mystery of the rosary we just have. You know, as St. Augustine, St. Francis said, we're beggars before our Lord. Just hands open. Yeah. In an imitation of Mary. What's the connection between Mary? This. This scene seems familiar to something else. In Luke's. At the beginning of Luke's Gospel with the Annunciation. Yeah. Is there. Is he drawing out those parallels? Oh, yeah.
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B
So, I mean, well, we could get deep into, like, Luke, Acts, you know, literary structure or whatever, but there are lots and lots of connections between the beginning of the Gospel of Luke and. And the beginning of the Book of Acts and. Of course. Right. The Holy Spirit coming upon Mary at the Annunciation, and then the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles here in Acts 2. Yeah, there's a lot there.
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So just as Mary receives our Lord in her womb and then receives the holy name of Jesus, now these apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit and are going to go proclaim and suffer for the name of Jesus.
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Yeah. And they're going to speak the words of the gospel, these words of fire.
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Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. So there's so much here. Hopefully, our Bible study was fruitful and helpful for you as you pray. This wonderful mystery of Pentecost, what we celebrate, as Dr. Gieshek mentioned, the Mary, the mother of the church, is actually a new feast day that was instituted just in the last couple years. So the day after Pentecost is not just the next day in ordinary time, but it's actually Mary, mother of the church. So be sure to celebrate Pentecost and Mary, mother of the church. And thank you for joining us.