WHIT SUNDAY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 138, 11 May 1940, Page 11

WHIT SUNDAY.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME. , To-morrow is the great annual festival known as Whit-Sunday, or Whitsun Day.. It is also known as Pentecost, that is, the “fiftieth” day after Easter., On that day, the fiftieth after the Resurrection or Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Divine Spirit, was poured out upon the disciples of Jesus at Jerusalem. Christians believe that He has ever since been the source of guidance and power in the Church. Thus the annual remembrance is a natural time, for religious tlianksgiving.. . y . • \ .

The name Whit-Sunday is qf much interest. It is of early origin in English speech. There seems to have been early doubt as to its exact meaning. Thus in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we find under A.D. 1067 that “Eldred the Archbishop hallowed the Queen at Westminster *on ‘Hwitan Sunnan Doeg’.” In Layamonls Brut (A.D. 1205) there are found both “Whit-Sundaeie” and “Witesondaiye,” showing the uncertainty that we still recognise. Several theories as to the history and meaning of the name are held. It may be derived from the colour “white” or from the word “wit.” Thus Whit Sunday may mean White Sunday. This is supposed to be a name derived, from the ancient custom of baptising at that festival, the candidates being clad in white. Or the name may be, properly, White-Sun Day, a name noting the brilliance of the sun, in Europe, as the summer season advances.

If the name Whit Sunday is derived from “wit” (understanding) this would he because the festival celebrates the great mental gifts brought to the Church by the Holy Spirit, as He is described in the eleventh chapter of the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Loi’d.”

In England the Whitsun Festival receives much public attention, Whit Monday ranking with Easter Monday as a general holiday. In New Zealand it is much neglected, perhaps because the entrance upon the winter season makes the time unsuitable for out-of-door festivity.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

As Whit Sunday falls to-morrow, the vicar, Canon G. Y. Woodward, in All Saints’ Church, on Sunday last, read extracts from the notes of Rt. Reverend the Bishop of Welling ton to the Church Chronicle, particularly with regard to the observance of Whit Sunday, as follows “Wo live in a world torn to pieces by disruptive and destructive forces. I cannot help feeling that we in New Zealand have not realised the extreme gravity of the present situation, or its menace to everything we hold dear in life and to the very maintenance of the Christian foundations on which democratic civilisation is.based. Events may have taken place before my words are read in the parishes to underline what 1 am trying to express, and to emphasise the challenge to us as a church to reinforce to the uttermost the moral strength of the nations who are attempting to withstand the desperate and sinister attack which has been unleased by the spiritual forces of evil in the world. It is our supreme ■ privilege as a Church to proclaim fcoristantly and with increasing emphasis that ultimately only the creative work of God’s spirit in human life can save the world from spiritual and moral disaster. Whitsuntide is the season when the Church proclaims its undying faith in the present and immediate activity of God within the human situation. Can we not concentrate much more thought and devotion on this season than we are accustomed to in New Zealand? I have been most appalled since I came to, Wellington by the neglect of the * Festival of Whit Sunday on the part of so many Church members. May I appeal to the clergy and their congregations to make Whit Sunday services this year more worthy of the faith they profess Pit seems nothing less than a travesty of the 'Christian faith when a mere handful take part in the Communion services on that day, whereas the w'hole membership of the Church should be engaged in thanking God for that great gift of the Holy Spirit which alone has in it the hope of the creation of a better world and of better men and women. Let this coming Whit Sunday be honoured in every Church in this diocese as it has never been honoured before, that the still, . small voice of the Holy Spirit may prevail above the crash of bombs and the thunder of guns.”' ■ ■ ' ’ ' ;