The Festivals and their Meaning III: Ascension and Pentecost

This volume is a tremendous help for participating in the deep spiritual realities behind the Ascension and Pentecost festivals. Throughout his life Steiner talked about a modern spiritually conscious approach to the festivals of the year. Here is a compilation of what he had to say at various times about Ascension and Pentecost.

Six lectures given between the years 1908 and 1924. This translation, from shorthand reports unrevised by the lecturer, is by George Adams (Kaufman), Jesse Darrell, and Dorothy S. Osmond. Revised and edited by Alan P. Shepherd.

Foreword

This is the third volume in the series of lectures by Rudolf Steiner published under the title, The Festivals and their Meaning.

In the Councils of the undivided Church from the fourth to the ninth centuries, Christian thinkers wrestled with the theology of the Father and the Son, but the Church has never arrived at a theology of the Holy Spirit. To this Rudolf Steiner makes a profound contribution in these lectures, by linking together the three great Christian Festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun. He thereby shows Whitsun as the completion of the great redemptive work of Christ, a completion into which man could not enter in full consciousness until our present age. In doing this he throws light upon the great truths of Reincarnation and Karma in their relation to Christianity, and points to the spiritual unity which can bring together East and West.

These lectures are full of spiritual teaching and inspiration, but in some ways they are all the more difficult to grasp at first reading. They repay a hundred-fold patient and deep meditation.