Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary 

    The descent of the Holy Spirit occurred on the same day as the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which is also 

called Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks. This feast is celebrated by the Jews on the 50th day from the second 

day of Passover (Nisan 16). Counting forward 50 days from Nisan 16 brings us to the 6th of the Jewish month 

of Sivan. The Feast of Weeks begins on Sivan 6 and continues for a second day on Sivan 7. 

    This Jewish feast is called Pentecost, meaning fiftieth, because it occurs on the 50th day from the second day 

of Passover. Pentecost is also called the Feast of Weeks because it begins on the day following the completion 

of 7 full weeks, or 50 days (Lev 23:9 21). The first fruits of the harvest of grain were brought by the Jews to the 

priests of the Temple of Jerusalem as an offering to God, during the Passover. Even though Sacred Scripture 

says that this was done on the morning after the first Sabbath after the harvest began (which would be during 

Passover), Jewish tradition eventually developed so that the first fruits of the grain harvest were offered to God 

always on the morning after the first holy day of Passover (that day is a kind of Sabbath). The year that Christ 

died, the first day of Passover was a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath (Jn 19:14, 31). So the first fruits of the 

harvest were offered that year, in complete fulfillment of Sacred Scripture, on the morning after the Sabbath, 

which was also the morning after the first day of Passover. The day after the Jewish Sabbath is Sunday and 

counting forward, inclusively, 50 days brings us also to a Sunday, the first day of the Jewish feast of Pentecost 

and the very first Christian Pentecost. 

The Month and Day of Christian Pentecost 

    Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, April 9 of 

A.D.

 19, which was Nisan 16 in the Jewish calendar. 

Nisan 16 is also the first day in the count of the 50 days until the Feast of Weeks (the Jewish feast of 

Pentecost). On the 40th day from the Resurrection, Jesus ascended to Heaven. Counting 40 days, beginning 

with the Resurrection on April 9, brings us to May 18, a Thursday, the day of Jesus' Ascension to Heaven. 

Ten days later the Jewish feast of Pentecost began, on the 50th day from Nisan 16, which was also the 50th 

day from the Resurrection. 

    When two days of the calendar occur 50 days apart, counting inclusively, they will coincide with the same 

day of the week. And since there are 50 days from Nisan 16 to Sivan 6 (the first day of Jewish Pentecost), 

those two days will always fall on the same day of the week. According to Sacred Scripture, the first day of the 

Jewish feast of Pentecost was to be celebrated on the morning after the seventh Sabbath. So the first day of the 

50 days was to be the morning after the first Sabbath of Passover, and the last day of the 50 days was to be the 

morning after the seventh Sabbath (Lev. 23:15 16). The first of the seven Sabbaths, though, was not the first 

Sabbath of Passover, but the next Sabbath, the seventh day in the count of 50 days, (see chapter 7 for an 

explanation of `the second first Sabbath'). The Jews at the time of Jesus' Ministry had developed a tradition of 

counting the 50 days from the second day of Passover (Nisan 16) to the 6th day of Sivan (50 days later), 

regardless of whether these days coincided with the morning after a Sabbath. However, the Jews at one time 

must have counted the 50 days from Sunday to Sunday (the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, the morning after the 

Sabbath is Sunday). 

    The book of Leviticus in the Old Testament was written after the Jewish people had been delivered out of 

slavery in Egypt and had begun to live the teachings of God given to them by Moses. The Jewish people first 

lived these teachings, then handed them down from generation to generation by a tradition of words and of 

continued practice in their lives a living tradition. The book of Leviticus was written afterwards, a written 

record of that living tradition. Therefore, when Sacred Scripture says that the 50 days was to be counted from 

the morning after the Sabbath to the morning after the seventh Sabbath (Sunday to Sunday), this must once 

have been the case. Only later did some Jewish religious leaders develop a new tradition of beginning the 50 

days on the second day of Passover regardless of the day of the week. 

    Yet, by God's Providence, in the year that Christ died, the 50 days began and ended on a Sunday, according 

to the instruction of Sacred Scripture and the practice of the Jews in earlier times. Thus did Sacred Scripture 

instruct the Jews to live the feast of Passover in preparation for the Resurrection of the Christ and the Descent 

of the Spirit of God. The Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost occurred on the 50th day from the 

Resurrection, on Sunday, May 28 of 

A.D.

 19. 

56