Inhabiting the Christian year: Pentecost & Ordinary Time
With this post we conclude our series looking at the Western Christian year ( liturgical calendar ) . For the other posts in the series, click a number: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , and click here for a related post on the shape of the church's liturgy. So far in this series on inhabiting the Christian year, we've looked at Advent , Christmas , Epiphany , Lent , Holy Week and Easter . Now we conclude the series looking at Pentecost and Ordinary Time . Pentecost The ancient church chose to end the 50-day-long season of Easter with a Pentecost Sunday celebration. It was on Pentecost (50 days after the Resurrection and 10 days after the Ascension) that the risen, ascended Lord poured out the Holy Spirit in order to form and empower the church for mission. You will recall that at the Last Supper, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send them "another helper," the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, ESV). Following his resurrection and ascension, our Lord f