Pentecost: Descent of the Holy Spirit (SB 01) Postcard

Pentecost is the moveable Christian feast that is celebrated fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday and ten days after He ascended into Heaven on Ascension Thursday. Pentecost commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles as well as other followers of Jesus who were gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Weeks, a Jewish holiday. Acts 2:1-31 recounts the event in detail. + In this Florentine fresco by Blessed Fra Angelico (1395-1455), the event takes place in the starkly bare and dark Upper Room or Cenacle where the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper took place. In the center is Mary, the Blessed Virgin, dressed in sky blue. She is surrounded by the remaining eleven Apostles--Judas Iscariot having hung himself—who are garbed in colorful robes in mostly clear bright pastels—pinkish reds and sky blues, oranges and yellows, and dark greens. An angel on the extreme right directs the view of one of the Apostles—and us, too—to the descending Holy Spirit in the guise of a dove in the empty space above the BVM’s head. Another male figure--perhaps Matthias, Judas’s replacement—who is barely visible to the angel’s right looks in on the scene from the doorway. Tongues of flame appear above the crown of everyone’s head. The flames are a tangible manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and a symbol of the missionary zeal with which Jesus’s followers were imbued. Pentecost fulfilled the prediction made by St. John the Baptist that Christ would baptize his followers with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11). + In the United Kingdom, Pentecost is termed “White Sunday”, “Whitsunday”, or “Whitsun”. + Image Credit (SB 01): Descent of the Holy Spirit by Fra Angelico (1395-1455) from an antique divided-back postcard originally published between 1907 and 1915 by E. Sborgi, Florence, Italy, from the designer’s collection of religious ephemera.