This season comprises 7 weeks from the day of the feast of Pentecost. In this season we give importance to the working of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is a feast intimately connected with the history of salvation. In the Old Testament, we read that the Israelites celebrated Pentecost in connection with harvest. The term ‘Pentecost’ means ‘fifty’ – the feast on the fiftieth day. It was a feast of first fruit connected with the harvest. Later this feast turned out to be the commemoration of the covenant by which the Israelites became the people of God. In the New Testament, this feast is given a new meaning. It was on the fiftieth day after Easter that the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. It is the birthday of the new people of God. On that 2023 May 35 day, God our Father sealed the new covenant in the Holy Spirit, the personification of love.
This covenant is written not on stone tables but in human hearts. It is only after Pentecost that the spirit-filled apostles went around the world with the message of the New Covenant and laid the foundation of the communities of faith. The term ‘apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’. This season reminds us that all those who have received baptism and anointing are ‘being sent’. The main themes of this period are the work of the Holy Spirit, deep relationship between the apostles and the Church ie, the people of God, the spirit and unity of the primitive Church and the mission and missionary nature of the Church. Let us join the apostles who moved around the world with the message of their master and formed new communities of the faithful.
Bishop Bosco was born on 28 May 1946 at Parappur, in the archdiocese of Trichur, Kerala. He hails from a deeply religious Catholic family.
Bishop Bosco was born on 28 May 1946 at Parappur, in the archdiocese of Trichur, Kerala. He hails from a deeply religious Catholic family.