In the seasons of the church we have moved on from Easter, where we remembered the ultimate sacrifice made by God for mankind. In St John’s Gospel we read the words of Jesus in chapter 14, where he promises that after He is gone He will send a counsellor or advocate who will be with us and amongst us. This great event occurs at the time of Pentecost, the Jewish Feast of Weeks (also known as the Feast of Harvest) which falls 50 days after the Sabbath of Passover Week (for us, Eastertide). In Judaism this also commemorated the time when Moses received the Ten Commandments; therefore Pentecost commemorates for many people an important date in their calendars. For us as Christians, this was a time when the Holy Spirit was manifest in and through man. It is recorded in The Acts of the Apostles that the disciples were hiding for fear of their lives and staying out of the public eye, yet God came down and empowered them with the gift of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to proclaim the good news that Jesus was alive and well and man’s hope for salvation.

In the world in which we live, where life is characterised by a sense of hopelessness and fear as we see a war-torn, terrorist-driven environment, we are able to reflect that for all of us there is hope and comfort in the presence both around and through us of the Holy Spirit. May this be a time when we can renew our faith and seek to make our own environment and the world at large a better place for all to live in, without fear and terror but with peace and hope. Philip Waine Member, St Paul’s PCC