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Stained Glass in the Basilica of Vysehrad in Prague, Czech Republic, depicting the Descent of the Holy Spirit as a Dove over Mary and the Disciples. |
On the Pentecost, it is written in the Bible (Acts 2), that Jesus's apostles were all gathered together to pray, along with "the women" and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Suddenly, there came "a mighty rushing wind," a common symbol for the Holy Spirit—the third godly member of the divine trinity of Christianity, along with the God the Father and the Son (Jesus).
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Mary and female disciples under the Pentecostal dove at L'Isle-Adam. |
It's a rare instance where women were involved in anything sacramental or powerful in the New Testament. While some scholars are accepting of the interpretation of the Fractio Panis (Breaking of the Bread) fresco in the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla as depicting female figures participating in a Eucharistic ceremony, others vehemently deny the visible evidence.
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit (Hebrew: ruach ha-kodesh) refers to the divine force, and its feminine aspect, shekhinah, is associated with the dove. The Hebrew noun ruacḥ is feminine, and can refer to "breath," "wind," or some invisible moving force.The Pentecost in particularly important in the Easter Orthodox tradition, where it is celebrated as a three- or seven-day feast, using iconography of the Twelve Apostles seated with the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) shown sitting in the center of them. Similarly in the West, the typical image of Pentecost is that of the Mary seated centrally and prominently among the disciples. Pope Benedict in one of his teachings said that “there is no Pentecost without Mary.”As patriarchal religions wiped out the ancient goddess ones, Jesus supplanted Dionysus, the son of the goddess Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries. The divine feminine in the Father-Mother-Child trinity was ghosted, first as the Holy Ghost, then as the Holy Spirit, often symbolized by a dove. Luke 3:22 describes Jesus's baptism saying, "And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove." Depictions of the event feature a dove hovering over Jesus as he is baptized.
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Baptism of Christ. Cima da Conegliano, c. 1494 |
Catherine of Alexandria, the Christian saint who was tortured on the Catherine wheel, was said to have been fed daily by a dove from heaven while imprisoned. She was one of the saints who appeared to Joan of Arc.
Starting in the Middle Ages, cathedrals and churches throughout Western Europe were designed with "Holy Ghost holes," open circular windows through which doves or depictions of them were lowered during Pentecost services, while the choirboys would "break into the whooshing and drumming sound of a holy windstorm."
Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was one who experienced the sound of rushing wind when he had his first psychedelic experience. Another was Emily Dickinson.
So it seems that the goddess and the entheogenic religious experience may peek through the shroud of male dominance on Pentecost a/k/a Trinity Sunday.
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