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The Day of Pentecost brings the Easter season to a climactic finale. The world rejoices with unrestrained joy, for the God who raised Jesus from the death has raised the church, and sent Her its missionary tasks, and has given the Holy Spirit to be its life-giving soul.
The roots of Pentecost are in the Jewish festival of Shavout, of which the Greek word Pentecost the equivalent--the "fiftieth day." Shavout is the fiftieth day after the beginning of Passover; the Christian Pentecost is the fiftieth day of Easter in Israel, Shavout was a day of thanksgiving for the wheat harvest, and an annual commemoration, the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. Just as the giving of the Law marked a new relationship between Israel and the God who had delivered them from Egypt in the Exodus, so Pentecost marks the beginning of a new relationship between humanity and the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
On that Pentecost following Jesus' resurrection Jews from all parts of the Empire were gathered together. The hearing in one language came as a sign of the reversal of Babel when the unity of the people of earth was broken by sin. The Spirit comes to bring together the scattered of earth. The Spirit comes to heal a division and restore unity. Just as all barriers of nationality and language were transcended in the first-century Pentecost so it is for us a sign of that day when all barriers separating people will be broken down and humanity will find its true unity in God.
RED is the traditional color, suggestive of the flames of Pentecost and the birth of the church.
TRINITY SUNDAY was added to the liturgical calendar about A.D. 1000. It centers on a theological doctrine rather than on an event. It proclaims the Triune God, into whose name we are baptized and who is active in redeeming the world.
WHITE is the traditional color.
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