PENTECOST

Mass During the Day

Year A

Readings

First Reading
Acts 2:1–11

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 104:1, 24, 29–30, 31, 34

Second Reading
1 Cor 12:3b–7, 12–13

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Today’s readings present us with not one but two accounts of the Pentecost event. In the first reading, we have Luke’s as it appears in Acts, and in the Gospel, John’s, which is set not on the Jewish feast of Pentecost but on Easter evening. Both relate the same extraordinary occurrence: the assembled disciples receive the Holy Spirit which arrives in the form of moved air (wind in Acts, breath in John) and are sent to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. They proceed immediately—Peter to the Jews gathered in Jerusalem in Acts and the disciples to Thomas in John.

Luke models his story on the manifestation of God on Sinai when, with loud peals of thunder, “the Lord came down upon it with fire” (Ex 19:16, 18); the pattern for John’s version is the second story of creation in Genesis, where God blew the breath of life into the clay figure who became thereby a living being (2:7). So it is that today’s readings illustrate the unity in diversity that Paul preaches to the Corinthians as the hallmark of the one Spirit.

The copyright for the Sunday Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul