A woman came to her appointment for spiritual direction after several months of practicing twenty minutes of contemplative prayer daily. She reported her prayer regimen was bringing peace and gentleness, like softly falling snow, a sense of acceptance of one’s place in the universe and the uni­ verse being in its place. This very personal fruit of consistently inviting the person of Jesus into a one-on-one intimate relationship each day had surprised and con­ fused her.

The early Church called metanoia a turning around, a change of direction, when one sees with new eyes, understands with a different awareness. Such metanoia affects us on many levels simultaneously, and that is what happened to this woman. Her old experience of God as a harsh judge was being challenged by a new gentle Jesus glimpsed in prayer. This brought her to a new willingness to risk more for the sake of the relationship she had discovered. She had not been involved in any church community. Now she was long­ing to meet people who could help her find an ongoing experience of this divine love.

Such love must be sought after, longed for, cher­ished, pursued, and located through the discipline of faith which opens one slowly to intense constant intimacy and yields an awareness of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit within. It cannot be found only by conceptually embracing the principle of love as unity, but by experiencing the Holy Spirit in the midst of daily life and relationships.

As this presence of love grew, the woman’s questions emerged. How does one grow closer to Christ? What do I do with the doubts that my mind keeps bringing up, the glance backward to the days of hiding inside my intellect to keep me from risking the experience of closeness with Christ? It’s more than intellectual doubt; it’s fear that He may ask me to do something I am afraid to do, don’t want to do, don’t have the courage to do. How do I know what to do and how to do it, overcome the fears, and trust that I am following God’s will? In answer to all these questions, the Church offers us the Great Feast of Pentecost.

“Church” as a word means those called as a particular people to perform a particular task. The Christian church is the assembly of God’s chosen people called to keep His word and do His will and His work in the world and in the heavenly kingdom. The external meaning of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church carries the additional inner meaning that each person is called to mature in spiritual life.

On the 50th Day after Easter (Pascha), the tenth day after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, during the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the Christian church celebrates the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, or Pentecost. Pentecost for the Jews was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover, commemorating the giving of the Sinai law to Moses 50 days after their exodus from Egypt. As the Passover feast celebrated the Israelites’ exodus from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God’s gift of the law to structure their new life.

In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, the “exodus” of humanity from this sinful world to the Kingdom of God. In the New Testament as well, the Pentecostal feast is fulfilled and made new by the coming of the “new law,” the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ. The celebration of Pentecost expresses symbolically the power of the Holy Spirit reviving, renewing, and giving life to all things, and in Orthodox tradition is expressed through the decoration of churches and houses with green branches, plants, and flowers.

The word “apostolic” describes that which has a mission, that which has “been sent” to accomplish a task. Christ and the Holy Spirit are both “apostolic” because both have been sent by the Father to the world. As Christ was sent from God, so Christ Himself chose and sent His apostles. “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you…. receive ye the Holy Spirit,” the risen Christ says to His disciples. At Pentecost the coming of the Spirit is the final fulfillment of Christ’s earthly messianic mission and the beginning of the messianic age of the Kingdom of God mystically present in this world. Thus, after Pentecost the disciples go out to the world, becoming the first foundation of the apostolic Church. It is this Feast which pushes wide the door to fulfilling humanity’s search for love, first opened by Christ’s resurrection.

II

The dogma of the Trinity is the fundamental theological theme of the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost Sunday is also called Trinity Sunday in the Orthodox Church, because the appearance of the Holy Spirit revealed how necessary the mystery of the Holy Trinity was in participating in the descent of the Holy Spirit: God the Father, who sent the Holy Spirit, God the Son Jesus Christ who entreats the Father to send the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit, who descended appearing as fiery tongues.

But the Feast of Pentecost must not be understood only in its dogmatic and liturgical significance as the founding event of the Christian Church. The importance of Pentecost is not just as a day, or even a season, but as the entirety of the Church’s life process, and the dynamic purpose of spiritual life and growth in Christ’s followers.

This obvious implication is seen in the Orthodox Church’s lectionary, arranged in accord with the central message of Pentecost. The Church’s reason for being is rooted and focused in Pascha, and radiates from there to permeate the rest of time with its mission to transfigure all creation, in order to return it to the fullness of God which God intended, and for which God created humans in His “image and likeness.”

Monday, the day after Pentecost Sunday, is the feast of the Holy Spirit, and the following Sunday is the feast of All Saints. This liturgical sequence emphasizes that the coming of the Holy Spirit is fulfilled in humans by their becoming saints. This is something new. Whereas the Spirit formerly came and went, leading as a cloud or exhorting as a prophetic inspiration, it now abides within the People of God.

In the Holy Spirit humans have the possibility of sharing God’s divine nature and life, of doing what Christ has done by fulfilling his “new commandment”

to love one another even as he has loved us, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which he has given us” (Romans 5:5). The fruits of this Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… (Gal 5:22-25; 6:8).

For Trinity Sunday the Orthodox Church has adopted the icon of the Holy Trinity depicting the biblical scene of three men as winged angels appearing to Abraham as visitors by the oak of Mamre (Gen 18). This is the first appearance of God to humanity, signifying the beginning of the promise of redemption. The most well known version of this icon is that by Andrew Rublev, painted probably between 1408 and 1425.

Both the iconography and the liturgical prayers of the Church link this partial revelation with its fulfillment on the Christian Feast of Pentecost, when the final revelation concerning the Holy Trinity is given. Two Pentecost icons bind together the beginning of the Old Testament Church with the establishment of the New Testament Church. The icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles is brought out on the second day of the Feast of Pentecost, Monday, dedicated to the Holy Spirit and called Spirit Day.

As the icon of the Holy Trinity points to the mystery of God’s being, the icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit reveals the providential action of the Holy Trinity in relation to the Church and the world. This icon shows the tongues of fire hovering over the Twelve Apostles, the original prototype of the Church, who are themselves sitting in unity surrounding a symbolic figure of “Cosmos,” the world. While the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-13) says that the descent of the Holy Spirit was accompanied by a sound and general perturbation, the icon shows us the reverse—a harmonious order and solemn calm.

The uninitiated people at this event saw the external reality, which led them to assert that the Apostles were “full of new wine.” Like all Orthodox icons, this icon depicts the spiritual reality of the event, the inner meaning revealed to the faithful. Saint Symeon the New Theologian says that this mode of acting of the Holy Spirit—by means of a loud noise as of a rushing mighty wind and with tongues of fire—was something unique. It happened only in the time of the Apostles for the sake of the unbelievers. The Holy Spirit, he observes, comes very calmly through silence in prayer, in the form of spiritual light, and evokes joy.

The Pentecost hymns contrast the confusion of tongues in Babylon to their harmonious union on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. The writings of the Church say that it was necessary that the peoples, who had lost their unity of tongue and were dispersed during the building of the earthly tower, should once more recover this unity and should be collected together in the spiritual building of the Church, fused into its single holy body by the fire of love. Thus, according to the likeness of the Holy Trinity, undivided and distinct, there is formed a new being, the holy Church, one in its being, but multiple in persons, whose head is Christ and whose members are angels, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all those who have repented in faith. This unity in the likeness of the Trinity is precisely the inner nature of the Church, and the icon depicts this by the Twelve Apostles forming a semicircle, expressing the unity of the Church, with all the multiplicity of its members. Each disciple is distinct, none exactly alike, calling to mind the diversities of gifts and operations bestowed by the Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-31). Tradition says that to fulfill the prophecy of Joel (2:28-29), the Holy Spirit descended not only on the twelve chosen apostles but also on all those who were with them “with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1), that is, on the whole Church. This is why the icon represents apostles not belonging to the twelve—Apostle Paul (sitting with Apostle Peter at the head of the circle of Apostles), and among the seventy, Luke the Evangelist (third from the top on the left) and Mark the Evangelist (third from the top on the right). Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are holding books, representing the Gospels. The others are holding scrolls, indicating the teaching authority given them by Christ. The figures are shown in inverse perspective, growing bigger as they recede from the foreground because authentic spiritual perspective is that of God looking at us, not us looking at God. The absence of Christ, necessary for the Holy Spirit to come, is indicated by the empty, unoccupied place. It is the place Christ occupied at the mystical supper with His disciples, and which He will occupy at the Second Coming. The segment of the circle that goes beyond the edge of the panel symbolizes heaven, and there descend rays or tongues of fire, as a sign of baptism with the Holy Spirit, according to the prophecy of John the Forerunner (Matt 3:11). At the bottom of the icon sits the figure representing “Cosmos,” the world, dressed in red with a crown on his head. His red garment signifies the devil’s blood sacrifices. The royal crown signifies sin, which ruled the world. The figure sits in a dark place, since the whole world had formerly been without faith. (A similar dark place appears behind the gates of Hades, shattered by Christ, in the icon of the Resurrection.)

While Jesus sanctified the world as the risen Christ and saved the world through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, it is Pentecost that completes the story of how Christ continues to save the world at all times in all places. The white cloth in the hands of the Cosmos figure holds twelve scrolls signifying the Good News of Christ expressed through the Twelve Apostles, who brought light to the whole world with their teaching. What is this teaching? Hearing the will of God, the word of God, the law of God, and being changed by it; living according to this change, and healing the world around us on our way home to God. If one lives this way then life will be enlightened by the Spirit in things great and small. There will be no doubting, and God will help in all things. If one has the desire—it may be a small desire, or only a desire to have the desire—if there is some desire somewhere, God will help us return to Him.

III

We have a crisis of connectedness in our time, with each other and with God. Generosity has not been humanity’s defining attribute, and trusting has not been humanity’s strength. The Spirit of trust and mutual giving is a gift from God, perhaps obscured but not obliterated. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit has a profound effect on every person, for by this action is begun the transformation from doubt to faith, from selfishness and fear to selflessness and trust. The soul has come into contact with God and cannot remain the same.

One’s behavior might change when one has given intellectual affirmation to all that the Church and the Gospels teach. In following Christ, one might do things differently than before. But the change does not end there, for these new actions have an effect through the Spirit; they begin to change the way one thinks of and perceives the world.

If for example you wish to develop compassion for someone, the best way to begin is to act as though you were compassionate. Through consistent compassionate actions on the part of the body, the mind will begin to think in terms of compassion and the heart will begin to taste compassion. If you act toward someone in a loving manner, and pray to love them, then after even a short time you will begin to love them in some small way.

Even here the change does not end, for once we develop new feelings and thoughts, then our spirit also changes and begins to develop in the soul the spiritual fruits of these changes, all by the power of the Spirit. This grace then transforms our very nature so that we no longer have a nature of sin, but begin to develop a nature which has the likeness of God.

Pascha and Pentecost are about transformation. At Pascha, we are reborn; we die and are resurrected with Christ. This new resurrected nature is then shaped and molded within the body of Christ—the Church—in accord with the teachings of the Church and the Gospels, and guided by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit.

God does not impose His will with no regard for our own desire, but rather helps us in our voluntary action to submit to His will and works. It is therefore necessary for us to cooperate with God. If we resist, He will withdraw and will not force Himself upon us. Thus we must develop within ourselves a desire for God which surpasses all other desire and a love for Him which is greater than any other love.

How do we do this? If you wish to love someone, then act as though you love them, and in a short time that love will begin to grow in your heart. So if we wish to develop a supreme love for Jesus Christ, then we must begin to act as though we had such a love already. If we adjust our behavior to conform with a supreme desire and love for God, then that desire and love will grow within our heart and soul. If we pray for growth in the Spirit, we live life more and more through the reality of the Spirit’s presence, permeated and transformed by it. We can discern God’s will for us, whether God is pleased with what we have done, and if we are doing all that we can do for one another in Christian love.

The Good News is not only that Christ has made us able to live by His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, making flesh capable of obtaining God. The Good News of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit, called the Comforter, will help us. The Holy Spirit searches out the deep things of God and gives them to us—things we cannot even utter or think, but which motivate us and can change us. They would be given to everyone, but everyone will not hear. The Holy Spirit enlightens those who wish to be enlightened, fills those who empty themselves from obstacles to enlightenment, and helps us even in emptying ourselves.

The Feast of Pentecost is not simply the celebration of an event which took place centuries ago. It is the constant renewal of relationship as sacrament in Church and community. We all have died and risen with the Messiah, and we all have received His Most Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit dwells in us (Rom 8; 1 Cor 2-3; 2 Cor 3; Gal 5; Eph 2-3). For all those who have been baptized in Christ, Pentecost has happened to us, is happening to us, and must continue to happen in us. Pentecost reveals the Spirit’s apostolic mission as our own: to accomplish saving faith and transforming love in the lives of humans in the here and now, and lead humanity and all creation toward fulfillment in union with the perfect love of God.