Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Pentecost
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Day of Pentecost.
Day: May 24, 2026
Sermon for Pentecost
“He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him,
and will manifest myself to him.”
Pentecost offers a glittering array of contrasting images that gather us into unity with God and with the whole of our humanity. There is wind and fire, and the many and different tongues where one thing proclaimed and understood, namely “the wonderful works of God.” There are the red hangings and vestments of Pentecost in the tradition of the Church on a day commonly called Whitsunday, ‘white Sunday’, symbolic of Baptism and new life. And what is that new life? It is the coming down or descent of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Apostolic Church and Faith in which we have our beginning and end; in short, our life in the abiding love of God.
One of the classical Anglican divines, Lancelot Andrewes, identifies the theological meaning and significance of Pentecost. He astutely observes that “the Holy Ghost is the Alpha and Omega of all our solemnities. In His coming down all the feasts begin; at His annunciation, when He descended on the Blessed Virgin, whereby the Son of God did take our nature, the nature of man. And in the Holy Ghost’s coming they end, even in His descending this day upon the sons of men, whereby they actually become “partakers,” θειας ψυσεως, “of His nature, the nature of God” (Andrewes, Whitsunday, 1610).
Pentecost is festum charitatis, the feast of love. “And He Whose feast [this] is, the Holy Ghost, is love itself, the essential love and love-knot of the two Persons of the Godhead, Father and Son. The same, the love-knot between God and man, yet more specially between Christ and His Church.” Word and Spirit. Faith properly refers to Christ the Word, whereas love is properly associated with the Spirit, who is also named the Comforter who brings faith to birth and strengthens and increases that faith in us. Comfort belongs to love. “If you love me, keep my commandments,” Jesus tells us in the Gospel, that in the giving of the Comforter “he may abide in you forever.” A beginning and an ending.
Month at a Glance, May – June 2026
Monday, May 25th, Monday after Pentecost
10:00am Holy Communion
Tuesday, May 26th, Tuesday after Pentecost / Eve of Ember Wednesday
7:00pm Holy Communion
Sunday, May 31st, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Thursday, June 4th, Corpus Christi
7:00pm Holy Communion
Sunday, June 7th, First Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Tuesday, June 9th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Thursday, June 11th, St. Barnabas
7:00pm Holy Communion
The Day of Pentecost
The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whitsunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27
Artwork: Mikhail Vrubel, Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, 1885. Fresco, St. Cyril’s Monastery, Kyiv, Ukraine.