Calling all to Unity ...
HOLY PENTECOST
"When the most High came down and confused the tongues, He divided the nations; but when he distributed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity. Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-holy Spirit!"
(Kontakion)
On Holy Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ’s apostles in tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind from heaven, phenomena whose energies yet reach from them to all their descendants. Hearing the apostles speaking their own languages, "three thousand were added to their number that day" (Acts 2:41).
The vision of simple fishermen clothed in power from on high must have burst on those present with all the innuendo of a lightning bolt: If the miracle-working Son of God accomplished all His wonders through the Spirit*, perhaps one could infer that He was really John the Baptist, or Elias, or “one of the prophets” (Mark 8.27-28 ) … But ordinary fishermen? Whose absence from their Teacher’s side during His sufferings was perhaps still fresh in the memory of more than a few?
Who, then, was excluded from the grace? Not only forgiven, but ordained to forgive on Pascha, and to teach in diverse languages on Pentecost, Peter and the Eleven suddenly find their powerful voice. No longer knowing fear from having chosen, like Paul, to know nothing but Christ, the apostles become the conduit through which grace flows to others, for it is only through the Spirit that they finally know Christ.
Who indeed has known Him by any other means, given the sweeping promise of His inaugural declaration to those living in the shadow and fear of death: "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven" – the grace of the Holy Spirit – "has drawn near". By the grace of God, repentance leads to the kingdom …
"Blessed are You O Christ Our God, You have revealed the fishermen as most wise, by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit. Through them You drew the world into Your net, O Lover of Man, Glory to You!"
(Troparion)
* Saint Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 16, PG 32: 140C-141A.
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