Pentecost Sunday 2007
Magandang gabi po sa inyong lahat mahal kong kaibigan. Naiintindihan po ba ninyo ako?
I am not drunk or high on drugs. I just spoke in Filipino my native language. What I just said was, “Good evening my dear friends. I wonder if you can understand what I was saying.”
Do you remember the story of the Tower of Babel from the Old Testament? The story tells that before everyone speaks with the same language, everyone used to understand each other and there was no language barrier. According to the story, pride building up in peoples’ hearts that they would like to be like God. One day people decided to build a tower in attempt to climb heaven and reach God. Because they spoke the same language, they worked well, so they easily built a tower as high as they could, hoping to stand at the level of God.
God was watching what these people were doing. He was not pleased. He had to do something to teach these people a lesson they would never forget. If He let disobedience like this go unpunished, what else might these people think about doing? So God said, "Let us go down and mix up their languages so that they cannot speak to one another."
Everyone was busy building. Then all of a sudden everything went terribly wrong. The workers could not understand each other. The foreman could not understand the workers. The architects could not understand the foreman. Men became angry with one another. Fights broke out here and there. How could they carry on building? They couldn't. The project stopped. First Reading: Reversal of the experience of Babel
“Holy Spirit the Language of Love”
First Reading (Acts 2:1-11) is meant to reverse the experience of Babel. We heard from the first reading the coming of the Holy Spirit. The apostles were all in one place when suddenly a strong driving wind filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them the Holy Spirit like tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them. When they were all filled with the Holy Spirit the apostles began to speak in different languages and the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
The first reading says there were Jews who came from different nations who witnessed what happened to the apostles. The Jews were surprised and astounded when they heard the apostles speaking their own native languages. How could they be?
If in the story of the tower of Babel people were disintegrated because they suddenly spoke different languages. There was chaos when God mixed up their languages. But the experience of the apostles was different. When spoke in different languages (speaking in tongues) people around them understood what they were saying. There was confusion not because they couldn’t understand each other but the Jews were confused that the apostles could speak their own native language (Acts 2:6). Some of them even thought they were drunk!
Thus, Pentecost overcomes the division of the people at Babel. At Pentecost the Jews and the apostles became more united as brothers and sisters, as one family of God. That is why the Scripture uses tongues as of fire (v 3) to convey this signification. This means that through the tongue of the Spirit, which is ultimately the language of love, all men and women of all races and nationalities will be reconciled and united. The feast of Pentecost we celebrate today is thus a time of reconciliation and communion as children of God, through the Holy Spirit.
Language of Communion
In the Gospel reading, we heard about the sending of the advocate. Jesus tells his disciples that He will ask the Father to send forth another Advocate to be with the disciples always. Jesus is the first Advocate. Now that Jesus is going back to the Father, he is no longer with his disciples but he sends forth the Holy Spirit upon them and so to us. Jesus is not with us physically but the Holy Spirit is alive and active in us to be our teacher, inspiration and friend, to help us bear witness of Christ’s presence in the Church and with one another.
The feast of Pentecost is not simply the 50th day after the Lord's resurrection; it is also the time when we as the Church, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, received our mission to bring all people of all races and cultures, colors and nationalities, to the love God.
Before Jesus sends forth the Holy Spirit he asked us only one thing - to speak the one common language of love – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments…Whoever does not love me does not keep my words…”
My dear friends let us ask ourselves: How is our relationship with Jesus? What is the level of your to Jesus. Do you have Jesus in your heart? If your answer is yes, are you willing to overcome your weaknesses and sinfulness for the sake of his love? Do you have enough inspiration of Jesus that you can change your way of living to inspire the lives of people around you? Or do you feel that Jesus is so quiet and away from you.
Do I feel weak that no matter how I try to be good my human weaknesses always surpass my willingness follow Jesus? Am I tired of my own self-centeredness and being unfair to other people...
In this Mass let open our hearts and let us invite the Holy Spirit to enter us so that Jesus may become truly alive and present in our day to day life. There are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit wisdom, understanding, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.
As we commemorate today the feast of Pentecost, may we receive all the gifts or one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we need most on our present journey of life.
Let us open our hearts and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that we may live in unity and accordingly to the one common language of Love - a language that transcends everything, languages, colors, nationalities... a language that unites all things in love.
Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
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