Joyful Eastertide

24 Apr 2019 • Articles

Throughout May we celebrate Eastertide, the season of the resurrection, closing with the Ascension of our Lord. Then we progress to Whit Sunday, also called the Feast of Pentecost, at the beginning of June, and the following week brings our annual celebration of the Holy Trinity.

During the forty days following the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Day, the disciples learned much more about the real meaning of the Kingdom of God. Finally, on the day of his ascension, Jesus told the disciples that they were to be apostles, people sent out to tell others what they had learned. At first they did not know how they would find the courage or the ability to do this, but on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled them with a real certainty that their work was beginning.

The friends of Jesus, who had followed him and listened to him for three years, suddenly found themselves in the streets of Jerusalem, talking to every passer-by with such enthusiasm that a crowd gathered and Peter had to assure their audience, "Don't say we are drunk, the morning is only beginning; this is what happens when people really receive God's Spirit. Turn away from sin, believe in Jesus, and the Spirit will come to you. "Three thousand people joined the Church that day, being baptised and committing themselves to learning about Jesus and following God's ways.

A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus Christ as the risen Son of God, God our Father in heaven, and who welcomes the presence of the Holy Spirit of God in their life. God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three Persons of the one God - this is the Holy Trinity honoured by the Church on Trinity Sunday.

Be with God, and let faith flower in your heart in the coming weeks.

Ann