Day of Pentecost

What Difference Does It Make?
He lives to pour out his Spirit

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When the disciples were distressed about Jesus leaving them, he assured them, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). 
 

That Advocate is the Holy Spirit. If Jesus had stayed in the grave, the Holy Spirit would have had no reason to come upon the disciples in power.
 

But Jesus lives, and it makes a difference. The Spirit provides faith and purpose for life. 
 

Pentecost, the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is the third great festival of the Church, along with the Nativity and the Resurrection. Pentecost closes the fifty-day period after Easter and ends the festival half of the church year. The Church dresses in red on this day to commemorate the tongues of fire that marked the Spirit’s gift as well as the blood of the martyrs.