What Is the Meaning of Receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost?
What Is the Meaning of Receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost?
Question:
Did not the Lord Christ breathe on the faces of His disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”?
And this was before the Ascension and before the coming of the Holy Spirit. So what is the meaning of their receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, when they had already received Him before?
Answer:
When the Lord breathed on the faces of His disciples, He gave them at that time the grace of the priesthood, or the Sacrament of the Priesthood. Therefore He said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22–23).
At that time, He gave them the Sacrament of the Priesthood, in which the Holy Spirit works for the absolution and binding of sins. But the Sacrament of the Holy Chrism, that is, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, He granted to them on the Day of Pentecost.
He gave them the anointing which we receive in the Sacrament of the Myron. In the days of the apostles, people received it through the laying on of the apostles’ hands.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Fifth Year – Issue Eleven – December 14, 1974.
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