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By de:Carl Emil Doepler the Elder (1824 Warszawa or Schnepfenthal – 1905 Berlin) – http://www.zeller.de/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=210471

The Feast of Corpus Christi (Latin for “Body of Christ”) is the Roman Rite liturgical solemnity celebrating the reality of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the Eucharist—known as transubstantiation. Two months earlier, the Eucharist is observed on Maundy Thursday in a somber atmosphere leading to Good Friday. Corpus Christi emphasizes the joy of the Eucharist being the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The feast is liturgically celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday or, “where the Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is not a holy day of obligation, it is assigned to the Sunday after the Most Holy Trinity as its proper day”.

At the end of Holy Mass, there is often a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, generally displayed in a monstrance. The procession is followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. A notable Eucharistic procession is that presided over by the Pope each year in Rome, where it begins at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran and passes to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where it concludes with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

The celebration of the feast was suppressed in Protestant churches during the Reformation, because they do not hold to the teachings of transubstantiation. Depending on the denomination, Protestant churches instead believe in differing views concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or that Christ is symbolically or metaphorically part of the eucharist. Today, most Protestant denominations do not recognize the feast. The Church of England abolished it in 1548 as the English Reformation progressed, but later reintroduced it.

An artistic depiction of the Trinity, with the hand representing the Father the ichthys representing the Son, and the dove representing the Holy Spirit

The Trinity (Latin: Trinitas, lit. ‘triad‘, from trinus ‘threefold’) is a Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons (hypostases) sharing one essence/substance/nature (homoousion).

As the Fourth Lateran Council declared, it is the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. In this context, one essence/nature defines what God is, while the three persons define who God is. This expresses at once their distinction and their indissoluble unity. Thus, the entire process of creation and grace is viewed as a single shared action of the three divine persons, in which each person manifests the attributes unique to them in the Trinity, thereby proving that everything comes “from the Father”, “through the Son”, and “in the Holy Spirit”.

This doctrine is called Trinitarianism, and its adherents are called Trinitarians, while its opponents are called antitrinitarians or nontrinitarians and are considered non-Christian by many mainline groups. Nontrinitarian positions include Unitarianism, binitarianism and modalism. The theological study of the Trinity is called “triadology” or “Trinitarian theology”.

While the developed doctrine of the Trinity is not explicit in the New Testament, the Gospel of John provided a foundation for the doctrine, and the New Testament possesses a triadic understanding of God and contains a number of Trinitarian formulas. The doctrine of the Trinity was first formulated among the early Christians (mid-2nd century and later) and fathers of the Church as they attempted to understand the relationship between Jesus and God in their scriptural documents and prior traditions.

Pentecost (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)

Pentecost (Ancient Greek: Πεντηκοστή [ἡμέρα], Pentēkostē [hēmera], “the fiftieth [day]”) is the Greek name for the Feast of Weeks, a prominent feast in the calendar of ancient Israel celebrating the giving of the Law on Sinai.

This feast is still celebrated in Judaism as Shavuot.

Later, in the Christian liturgical year, it became a feast commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ (120 in all), as described in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1–31.

For this reason, Pentecost is sometimes described by some Christians today as the “Birthday of the Church“.

In the Eastern church, Pentecost can also refer to the whole fifty days between Easter and Pentecost, hence the book containing the liturgical texts for Paschaltide is called the Pentecostarion.

The feast is also called White Sunday, or Whitsunday, especially in England, where the following Monday was traditionally a public holiday.

The Talmud refers to Shavuot as Atzeret (Hebrew: עצרת, literally, “refraining” or “holding back”), referring to the prohibition against work on this holiday and to the conclusion of the holiday and season of Passover.

Since Shavuot occurs 50 days after Passover, Hellenistic Jews gave it the name Pentecost.(πεντηκοστή, “fiftieth day”).

According to Jewish tradition, Pentecost commemorates God giving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai fifty days after the Exodus.

Present were about one hundred and twenty followers of Christ (Acts 1:15), including the Twelve Apostles (i.e. the Eleven faithful disciples and Matthias who was Judas’ replacement) (Acts 1:13, 26), his mother Mary, various other women disciples and his brothers (Acts 1:14).

Their reception of Baptism in the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room is recounted in Acts 2:1–6. While those on whom the Spirit had descended were speaking in many languages, the Apostle Peter stood up with the eleven and proclaimed to the crowd that this event was the fulfillment of the prophecy (“I will pour out my spirit”).

According to the current Jewish Calendar, the date of Pentecost is fifty days from Passover.

Since the date of Easter is calculated differently in the East and West (see Easter controversy), in most years the two traditions celebrate Pentecost on different days (though in some years the celebrations will coincide, as in 2010, 2011, and 2014).

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Pentecost is one of the Orthodox Great Feasts and is considered to be the highest ranking Great Feast of the Lord, second in rank only to Easter/Resurrection Sunday/Passover.

Theologically, Orthodox do not consider Pentecost to be the “birthday” of the Church; they see the Church as having existed before the creation of the world.

They may depict symbols of the Holy Spirit, such as the dove or flames, symbols of the church such as Noah’s Ark and the Pomegranate, or especially within Protestant churches of Reformed and Evangelical traditions, words rather than images naming for example, the gifts and Fruits of the Spirit.

While this practice is common among a wide spectrum of Western denominations (Eastern Churches do not employ instrumental accompaniment in their worship) it is particularly typical, and distinctive to the heritage of the Moravian Church.

The Pentecost Novena is considered the first Novena, all other Novenas offered in preparation of various festivals and Saints days deriving their practice from those original nine days of prayer observed by the disciples of Christ.

The holiday was also one of the three days each year (along with Christmas and Easter) Roman Catholics were required to confess and receive the sacrament of Holy Communion in order to remain in good church standing.

Christi Himmelfarht by Gebhard Fugel

The Feast of the Ascension of Jesus Christ (also called the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Ascension Day, Ascension Thursday; or sometimes Holy Thursday, which can also mean the Thursday before Easter) commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It is one of the ecumenical (shared by multiple denominations) feasts of Christian churches, ranking with the feasts of the Passion and Pentecost. Following the account of Acts 1:3 that the risen Jesus appeared for 40 days prior to his Ascension, Ascension Day is traditionally celebrated on a Thursday, the fortieth day of Easter according to inclusive counting, although some Christian denominations have moved the observance to the following Sunday, sometimes called Ascension Sunday. The day of observance varies by ecclesiastical province in many Christian denominations, as with Lutherans and Catholics, for example.

Ascensiontide refers to the ten-day period between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. The Sunday within that period may be referred to as the Seventh Sunday of Easter or the Sunday in Ascensiontide.

The Good Shepherd (Greek: ποιμήν ο καλός, poimḗn o kalós) is an image used in the pericope of John 10:1–21, in which Jesus Christ is depicted as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Similar imagery is used in Psalm 23. The Good Shepherd is also discussed in the other gospels, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the First Epistle of Peter and the Book of Revelation.