All Christians called to pray for new Pentecost: Saturday at 4pm EDT (10pm Rome time)

All Christians of every Church and ecclesial community are being invited to virtually join together at 10 p.m. Rome time (4 p.m. EDT) this Saturday, on the vigil of the solemnity of Pentecost, to implore the Holy Spirit and ask for a “new Pentecost” in the world.

The initiative comes from CHARIS, an organization the Vatican created last year to be at the service of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in all its forms.

The vigil will begin with a reflection with the Word of God, the reading of the account of Pentecost in Acts of the Apostles.

It will be followed by a short homily and the prayer of the Sequence of Pentecost in five languages.

Afterwards, Christians from the five continents will take turns praying and proclaiming the glory of God in their different languages, a sign that the Holy Spirit gathers believers together beyond differences of culture, ecclesial community or language, as he did on the day of Pentecost when “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs” heard the Apostles speaking “in our own languages … about God’s deeds of power.”

The preacher of the Pontifical Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, has a message for the event: The greatest miracles of the Holy Spirit are not obtained in response to our supplications, but in response to our praise. … The greatest miracle of praise is the one that happens to the one who practices it, especially in trial, because it shows that grace has been stronger than nature.The miracle of Paul and Silas in the prison — and of the three young men in the furnace — is repeated in multiple circumstances and in endless ways: release from disease, from drug addiction, from a wrongful conviction, from the burden of one’s own past…So let us drown the virus in a sea of praise, or at least try to do so. Let us unite ourselves to the whole Church which, in the Gloria of the Mass, proclaims: “We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your immense glory.” There is no supplication in this prayer, only praise!

The event is expected to draw participants from more than 100 countries, who will be linked at the web site of CHARIS.

CHARIS provides a magazine, courses, communities and a host of other services.