Each year, when the Day of Pentecost rolls around, we tend to identify it with springtime, the beginning of the lawn-mowing, shrub-shaving, petunia-planting, gardening and outdoor home improvement season. In a similar way we tend to think of the Day of Pentecost as having to do with “the birthday of the Church,” the beginning of the Church’s mission and of the long, green season of “the Church’s Half” of the liturgical year. Originally, in the Old Testament, however, the Day of Pentecost was a festival ordained by God for His people to give thanks for the culmination of their agricultural activities, the results of their planting and pruning and gardening, the beginning of the harvest when the very first fruits of their labors were coming in, the first part of which they were to offer to God not only in thanksgiving but also as a sort of declaration of their faith and conviction that, with the Lord’s blessing, the rest of the crop will come in also. That’s the primary meaning when St. Paul calls the risen Christ “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), that is, the risen Christ is the guarantee that “the rest of the crop” of God’s saints will also be raised to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. So, while this day marks the climax and goal of everything we have been celebrating and proclaiming since Advent last December, the Lord’s half of the year, this day also propels us to look forward to the harvest that lies before us. Continue reading “Conviction”