In his homily on Pentecost Sunday in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI said that ‘Pentecost is distinguished from all the Solemnities by its importance since what Jesus Himself had announced as the purpose of the whole of his mission on earth is brought about in it. Indeed, on his way up to Jerusalem he had declared to his disciples: ‘I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!’ (Luke 12, 49)