Why 'Whitsunday'?

This coming Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, the day when we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church as described in Acts 2. 

The name  Pentecost is drawn directly from the scriptures as the Greek name for the Old Testament Festival of Weeks.  The Festival of Weeks was celebrated fifty days after Passover and was initially a feast of thanksgiving for the wheat harvest. In later Israelite history it also became festival of thanksgiving for the giving of the Law.  

What one may notice, however, is that in the Prayer Book the feast of Pentecost is also given the name Whitsunday (BCP, 180).  This is the peculiar name that Anglicans have historically and colloquially used for Pentecost. Thus I'm asked each year, almost without fail, where that term comes from and why our prayer book uses it.  

While there is some debate as to the precise origin of 'Whitsunday,' many liturgical scholars think that the name originates as a truncated form of "White Sunday" - a name used by the English and other northern peoples, due to the fact that the newly baptized traditionally wore white on Pentecost Sunday.  Though much of the Church has historically baptized converts on Easter Eve, climatic conditions in these cooler northern lands favored waiting an additional fifty days and thus baptism was often administered in association with the feast of Pentecost.

Regardless of the preferred name for the day, Whitsunday ranks among the great feasts of the Church as we celebrate the gift of the Comforter who strengthens us and leads us into all truth.

Collect for Whitsunday:

O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end.   Amen. 

(BCP, p.180 -  to be prayed daily in morning & evening prayer throughout Whitsun Week)