Pentecost Day
wind and fire
Readings for Pentecost Day here
You make the winds your messenger
and flames of fire your servants.
-Psalm 104:4
In his study of mysticism, The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto describes both a sense of awe and a sense of dread when encountering the numinous. Like wind and fire in nature provoking situations of danger or comfort, wind and fire in scripture symbolize Divine Presence evoking awe and terror, fascination and comfort.
I think it is impossible to approach Pentecost without a sense of dread. The purpose of Christian initiation is new birth. It take us from Advent to Pentecost Day to practice all the modes of consciousness and wisdom and difficulty that prepares us for this day of rebirth by wind and fire. Apostolos means “sent”. We are “sent” with the Good News to the “ends of the earth” as Apostles of Good News. But Good News is real change, and change is dangerous, and often not received well.
What fire purifies you with awe and fascination and dread? The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest its voice, but thou knowest not whence it cometh and whether it goeth; so is every one that is born of the spirit. Where are you sent?
This week’s posting offer prompts on the church (one), divine union with God (two), and thoughts on going forth into the world (three and “the last word”). -Suzanne
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| Pentecost, Illustrator of Petites Heures de Jean de Berry, 14th century |
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MEDITATION PROMPTS
Meditation One
the beginning of the church
The Jewish day of Pentecost celebrated the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai. The story in the book of Exodus of the giving of the law is marked by characteristic Baal imagery: God appears on top of a mountain, with thunder, lightning, cloud, and earthquake. Exodus 19:19 says that when Moses talked to God, “God would answer him in thunder.” So in Acts 2 God arrives in “a sound like the rush of a violent wind,” and fire appears, not on the top of a holy mountain, but on the top of each believer’s head.
–Gail Ramshaw, Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary p.423
The beginning of Christendom is, strictly, at a point out of time. A metaphysical trigonometry finds it among the spiritual Secrets, at the meeting of two heavenward lines, one drawn from Bethany along the Ascent of Messias, the other from Jerusalem against the Descent of the Paraclete. That measurement, the measurement of eternity in operation, of the bright cloud and the rushing wind, is, in effect, theology.
The history of Christendom is the history of an operation. It is an operation of the Holy Ghost towards Christ, under the conditions of our humanity; and it was our humanity which gave the signal, as it were, for that operation. The visible beginning of the Church is at Pentecost, but that is only a result of is actual beginning – and ending – in heaven.
-Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church (quoted from Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness)
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Collect for Pentecost Day
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in its holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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| Pentecost, Friench Miniaturist, Ingeborg Psalter, c.1195 |
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Meditation two
Union of desires
And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected."
-Mechtild of Magdeburg 1207-1297
(trans.by Oliver Davies)
How God comes to the soul:
“I descend on my love
As dew on a flower."
-Mechtild of Magdeburg
(trans. by Oliver Davies)
There the soul dwells –
like the fish in the sea
and the sea in the fish.
-Catherine of Siena
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Meditation Three
going forth
Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world,
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings--
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound."
- Mechtild of Magdeburg 1207-1297
trans. Jane Hirshfield
Let us go forth into the world,
rejoicing in the power of Holy Spirit, Alleluia, Alleluia
-Dismissal after the Eucharist
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The Last Word
A prayer for going forth
Lord
Take me
where you want me to go,
Let me meet
who you want me to meet
Tell me
what you want me to say,
and keep me
out of your way.
-The Rev. Mychal Judge O.F.M. d. 9/11/2001
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