Happy Feast of Pentecost!

Oh Comforter and My Best Friend, How We Need Your Touch Again!

Reflecting on the Feast of Pentecost before the Regina Coeli, Pope Benedict said, “There is no Pentecost without the Virgin Mary. Thus it was at the beginning, in the Upper Room where the disciples "devoted themselves to prayer, together with some women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and his brothers" - as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles ( 1.14).

Speaking from the window of his study high above St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father explained that the Church constantly lives in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit without which it would exhaust its strength, “like a sailboat if the wind were to fail." Pentecost is especially renewed in particular moments, on a local and universal level, both in small gatherings and large encounters, from the Second Vatican Council to the local prayer meetings "in which young people clearly feel the God’s call to root their lives in love".

And there is no Pentecost without the Virgin Mary - concluded the pope – so it has always been and so it was a few days ago in Fatima, where "we were all one heart and soul", an immense multitude living a renewed Pentecost.