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Pentecost

The Pentecost, Jean RestoutI cannot begin to do the full reflection justice, but here is a small excerpt from Dom Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year:

Church of the living God ! how lovely art thou in thy first reception of the divine Spirit ! how admirable is thy early progress!  Thy first abode was in the Immaculate Mary, the Virgin full of grace, the Mother of God; thy second victory gave thee the hundred and twenty disciples of the cenacle; and now, three thousand elect proclaim thee as their mother, and, leaving the unhappy Jerusalem, will carry thy name and kingdom to their own countries.  To-morrow, Peter is to preach in the temple, and five thousand men will enroll themselves as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.  Hail! then, dear creation of the Holy Ghost!  Militant on earth; triumphant in heaven; beautiful, noble, immortal Church, all hail!  And thou, bright Pentecost! day of our truest birth! how fair, how glorious, thou makest these first hours of Jesus’ bride on earth!  The divine Spirit thou givest us, has written, not upon stone, but upon our hearts, the Law that is to govern us.  In thee, O Pentecost! we find realized the hopes foreshadowed in the mystery of the Epiphany; for though thou thyself art promulgated in Jerusalem, yet thy graces are to be extended to all that are afar off, that is, to us Gentiles.  It was thou, O holy Spirit! that dist attract them to Bethlehem: and now, in this Pentecost of Thy power, Thou callest all men; the star is changed into tongues of fire, and the face of the earth is to be renewed.  Oh! grant that we may be ever faithful to the graces thou offerest us, and carefully treasure the gifts sent us, with Thee and through Thee, by the Father and the Son!

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