Pentecost eve

A great day for the Church, tomorrow. The Hebrews of old counted Pentecost (Hebrew, Shavuot) as one of the three great festivals of their liturgical calendar, when they would make pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem. We Christians simply took up that old observance sanctified with new meaning by Christ and by the Holy Spirit who chose that moment, fifty days after the Pasch (Easter) and ten days after the Ascension, to fall in a wave upon the Apostles, the Holy Mother and their associates in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. 

Tomorrow at Mass we have an old feature of the Roman Rite at Mass, the sequence of verse that follows the second reading and stands before the Gospel. Very beautiful it is, too. Here it is, and the English is below the video.

Come, Holy Spirit,

send forth the heavenly

radiance of your light.

Come, father of the poor,

come, giver of gifts,

come, light of the heart.

Greatest comforter,

sweet guest of the soul,

sweet consolation.

In labour, rest,

in heat, temperance,

in tears, solace.

O most blessed light,

fill the inmost heart

of your faithful.

Without your spirit,

there is nothing in man,

nothing that is not harmful.

Cleanse that which is unclean,

water that which is dry,

heal that which is wounded.

Bend that which is inflexible,

fire that which is chilled,

correct what goes astray.

Give to your faithful,

those who trust in you,

the sevenfold gifts.

Grant the reward of virtue,

grant the deliverance of salvation,

grant eternal joy.

Text source