This week, fifty days after Easter, Sunday (May 19) is Pentecost for Western Christians, when they celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. According to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ followers in the form of tongues of fire. Pentecost is often called the birthday of the Church.

On Thursday (May 24), Bahai’s observe the Declaration of the Bab, the day in 1844 when the spiritual leader known as the Bab announced that he had been sent to prepare the way for God’s universal messenger.