Pentecost, fifty days after Easter, celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and Mary (Acts 2:1-4). The Upper Room in Jerusalem, where the apostles had gathered, is the birthplace of the Church: from this room the same men who had fled on Good Friday went out to preach, and on that day, Luke records, about three thousand were baptized. The feast closes the Easter season.
The Cenacle on Mount Zion in Jerusalem is venerated as the site of both the Last Supper and the Pentecost descent. The present Crusader-era room stands above the traditional tomb of David, and nearby is the Dormition Abbey, where German Benedictines keep the memory of Mary's falling asleep before her Assumption. The whole hill is layered with the last events of Christ's earthly life and the first events of the Church's.
In Rome, Pentecost is one of the four great stationes — along with Christmas, Easter, and St. Peter's chair — when the Pope celebrated at St. Peter's Basilica. The Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus — "Come, Holy Spirit" — has been sung at every Roman Pentecost Mass for a thousand years. Red vestments, the colour of fire, mark the day in every Catholic church in the world.
