Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary
The descent of the Holy Spirit occurred on the same day as the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which is also
called Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks. This feast is celebrated by the Jews on the 50th day from the second
day of Passover (Nisan 16). Counting forward 50 days from Nisan 16 brings us to the 6th of the Jewish month
of Sivan. The Feast of Weeks begins on Sivan 6 and continues for a second day on Sivan 7.
This Jewish feast is called Pentecost, meaning fiftieth, because it occurs on the 50th day from the second day
of Passover. Pentecost is also called the Feast of Weeks because it begins on the day following the completion
of 7 full weeks, or 50 days (Lev 23:9 21). The first fruits of the harvest of grain were brought by the Jews to the
priests of the Temple of Jerusalem as an offering to God, during the Passover. Even though Sacred Scripture
says that this was done on the morning after the first Sabbath after the harvest began (which would be during
Passover), Jewish tradition eventually developed so that the first fruits of the grain harvest were offered to God
always on the morning after the first holy day of Passover (that day is a kind of Sabbath). The year that Christ
died, the first day of Passover was a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath (Jn 19:14, 31). So the first fruits of the
harvest were offered that year, in complete fulfillment of Sacred Scripture, on the morning after the Sabbath,
which was also the morning after the first day of Passover. The day after the Jewish Sabbath is Sunday and
counting forward, inclusively, 50 days brings us also to a Sunday, the first day of the Jewish feast of Pentecost
and the very first Christian Pentecost.
The Month and Day of Christian Pentecost
Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, April 9 of
A.D.
19, which was Nisan 16 in the Jewish calendar.
Nisan 16 is also the first day in the count of the 50 days until the Feast of Weeks (the Jewish feast of
Pentecost). On the 40th day from the Resurrection, Jesus ascended to Heaven. Counting 40 days, beginning
with the Resurrection on April 9, brings us to May 18, a Thursday, the day of Jesus' Ascension to Heaven.
Ten days later the Jewish feast of Pentecost began, on the 50th day from Nisan 16, which was also the 50th
day from the Resurrection.
When two days of the calendar occur 50 days apart, counting inclusively, they will coincide with the same
day of the week. And since there are 50 days from Nisan 16 to Sivan 6 (the first day of Jewish Pentecost),
those two days will always fall on the same day of the week. According to Sacred Scripture, the first day of the
Jewish feast of Pentecost was to be celebrated on the morning after the seventh Sabbath. So the first day of the
50 days was to be the morning after the first Sabbath of Passover, and the last day of the 50 days was to be the
morning after the seventh Sabbath (Lev. 23:15 16). The first of the seven Sabbaths, though, was not the first
Sabbath of Passover, but the next Sabbath, the seventh day in the count of 50 days, (see chapter 7 for an
explanation of `the second first Sabbath'). The Jews at the time of Jesus' Ministry had developed a tradition of
counting the 50 days from the second day of Passover (Nisan 16) to the 6th day of Sivan (50 days later),
regardless of whether these days coincided with the morning after a Sabbath. However, the Jews at one time
must have counted the 50 days from Sunday to Sunday (the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, the morning after the
Sabbath is Sunday).
The book of Leviticus in the Old Testament was written after the Jewish people had been delivered out of
slavery in Egypt and had begun to live the teachings of God given to them by Moses. The Jewish people first
lived these teachings, then handed them down from generation to generation by a tradition of words and of
continued practice in their lives a living tradition. The book of Leviticus was written afterwards, a written
record of that living tradition. Therefore, when Sacred Scripture says that the 50 days was to be counted from
the morning after the Sabbath to the morning after the seventh Sabbath (Sunday to Sunday), this must once
have been the case. Only later did some Jewish religious leaders develop a new tradition of beginning the 50
days on the second day of Passover regardless of the day of the week.
Yet, by God's Providence, in the year that Christ died, the 50 days began and ended on a Sunday, according
to the instruction of Sacred Scripture and the practice of the Jews in earlier times. Thus did Sacred Scripture
instruct the Jews to live the feast of Passover in preparation for the Resurrection of the Christ and the Descent
of the Spirit of God. The Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost occurred on the 50th day from the
Resurrection, on Sunday, May 28 of
A.D.
19.
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