I have reproduced here the beautiful homily which Pope Benedict XVI gave on the Feast of the Pentecost. It shows his depth of wisdom and the keen insight he has into our current culture.
He concludes by saying, "Unity can only exist as a gift of God's Spirit."
“This is what happened at Pentecost.”
Babel, is the description of a kingdom in which people have concentrated so much power they think they no longer need depend on a God who is far away. They believe they are so powerful they can build their own way to heaven in order to open the gates and put themselves in God's place. But it's precisely at this moment that something strange and unusual happens. While they are working to build the tower, they suddenly realise they are working against one another. While trying to be like God, they run the risk of not even being human – because they've lost an essential element of being human: the ability to agree, to understand one another and to work together.
Progress and science have given us the power to dominate the forces of nature, to manipulate the elements, to reproduce living things, almost to the point of manufacturing humans themselves. In this situation, praying to God appears outmoded, pointless, because we can build and create whatever we want.
We don't realize we are reliving the same experience as Babel. It's true, we have multiplied the possibilities of communicating, of possessing information, of transmitting news – but can we say our ability to understand each other has increased? Or, paradoxically, do we understand each other even less?
He concludes by saying, "Unity can only exist as a gift of God's Spirit."
“This is what happened at Pentecost.”
I think we must believe that even today the Spirit moves and makes unity possible. Under Pope Benedict's rule, we have already seen the Anglicans return to Rome. Now, (I hope) the SSPX will soon join our fold. To whom can we credit this to, if not to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and Peter's successor.
Pope Benedict XVI, long may he reign!
In Sunday's homily,fr. also brought out this comparison between the Babel experience and the Pentecost experience. I missed mentioning it in my post. In former, under the wrath of God, people (without the anointing of the Spirit) were scattered due to the confusion caused by the language they spoke. But at Pentecost, once the Holy Spirit came, though they spoke in different languages, they understood clearly as they were united by & in the Spirit.
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