Pentecost

Pentecost (the Fiftieth [day]) is one of the prominent feasts in the Christian liturgical year commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ. The feast is also called Whitsun, Whitsunday, Whit Sunday, or Whitsuntide, especially in the United Kingdom. Pentecost is celebrated seven weeks (50 days) after Easter Sunday, hence its name Pentecost falls on the tenth day after Ascension Thursday.

Pentecost is historically and symbolically related to the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, which commemorates God giving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai fifty days after the Exodus. Among Christians, Pentecost commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus as described in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles 2:31 during these Jewish "fiftieth day" celebrations in Jerusalem. For this reason, Pentecost is sometimes described as the "Birthday of the Church".

Traditional interpretation holds that the Descent of the Holy Spirit took place in the Upper Room, or Cenacle while celebrating Shavuot, first mentioned in Luke 22:12 & 13 ( "And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.") ; the location of the Last Supper(Seder). The next mention of an Upper Room is in Acts, the continuation of the Luke narrative, authored by the same biblical writer. Here the disciples and women wait and pray for the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" promised by Jesus:"And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." It is assumed then that in Acts 2, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place", "they" refers to the aforementioned disciples and women; the "place" referring to the same Upper Room where these persons had "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication"

Other scholarship suggests the events of the first Pentecost recorded in the New Testament Book of Acts took place at the Temple Court located south and south-west of the Temple Mount, an area excavated by Israeli archaeologist Benjamin Mazar shortly after the Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967. In the Jerusalem Christian Review, Dan Mazar wrote about the archaeological discoveries made at this location by his grandfather, Prof. Mazar, which included the first century stairs of ascent, where Jesus and his disciples preached, as well as the "mikvaot" (or baptismals) used by the "three thousand" who were baptized on the day of Pentecost, according to the Book of Acts.

In Italy it was customary to scatter rose petals from the ceiling of the churches to recall the miracle of the fiery tongues; hence in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy Whitsunday is called Pasqua rosatum. The Italian name Pasqua rossa comes from the red colours of the vestments used on Whitsunday. In France it was customary to blow trumpets during Divine service, to recall the sound of the mighty wind which accompanied the Descent of the Holy Spirit.