For the people of Israel, Pentecost was a feast in memory of the gift of the Law on Mount Sinai, the feast of the alliance. Now, the gift of the Spirit makes Pentecost the celebration of the new, last and definitive alliance for the community of God. Jesus didn’t leave his Church alone nor, through his ascension into heaven, there was a great separation which put an end to his work in the world. As a matter of fact, the community of the believers shares the same life and Spirit with the Lord Jesus, and this makes them qualified to continue Jesus’ work: “To announce the good news, to do the good, to heal those who are under the power of Satan.” By means of the Pentecost, Jesus’ Church was consecrated in the Holy Spirit and thus qualified for the mission, in the same way as He had been (see Acts 10:38).

Exactly for this reason the fourth gospel lays emphasis on the fact that the holy Spirit is given so that the disciples announce the remission of sins and gather the scattered sons of God, whereas the Acts witness that the risen Lord’s announcement is made in different languages by the Church, in the ways the Spirit gave the apostles the ability to express themselves (see Acts 2:3-4). After the apostles received the holy Spirit through the miracle of the tongues of fire, the words announcing the Risen Lord, the good news, are understood by Parthians, Medes and Elamites and by the various inhabitants of the several countries of the Mediterranean area. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “The Spirit descended upon the disciples in tongues of fire so that they could say words of fire in the languages of all peoples and could announce a fiery law by means of tongues of fire.”