08 June 2012

"Babeling"


Pentecost
            In the story of the Tower of Babel, the sacred author of Genesis tries to explain how all the people of the earth at that time were speaking different languages.  The people try to build a tower to be able to go up to God.  Instead, God makes them speak different languages, so that they cannot complete the tower.  The Solemnity of Pentecost is the undoing of the confusion of Babel.  St. Luke records for us in the Acts of the Apostles that Jews from all over the world, who were in Jerusalem, heard the apostles speaking to them in their native languages, languages that the apostles did not know or speak minutes before the Spirit was given to them. 
While it is a work of God the Holy Spirit to allow the apostles to be able to speak to the Jews from all across the world in their own varied native languages, the story of the Tower of Babel, and the undoing of Babel at Pentecost, is about something much greater than being able to speak many languages.
            In the story of the Tower of Babel, humanity tries to make itself equal with God, to decide for itself what is right and wrong.  And the result of this pride is that everyone starts speaking differently so that no one is understood.  Our society is still a culture of Babel.
            We are a culture that values having our own opinions on just about everything and we often feel that our opinions are necessarily right, just as our neighbor feels that his opinion is necessarily right.  The result is that we often talk past each other without any understanding.  Take, for example, cable news stations like MSNBC, Fox News, or CNN.  Each presents the same facts, more or less.  But then those facts are pushed through a particular filter by which that station views the world, their opinion about how things should be, and we end up getting 3 different stories even though the facts are the same. 
            This is true also in the faith.  More and more people are deciding that their opinions about God, faith, and morality are necessarily the right ones, and no one should be able to contradict what they say, unless, of course, they want someone else’s opinion.  Whether it’s on who Jesus is, how marriage should be defined, women’s ordination, or contraception, or any other major issue, we have become the judges of right and wrong.  We are trying to build our own towers to God to tell Him how He should be.  And the result is confusion as each person speaks past each other as they share their opinions.
            Pentecost stands in stark contrast to this.  Rather than us trying to be on equal footing with God, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to the apostles, the Blessed Mother, and the disciples to lead them into all truth, as Jesus says in the Gospel according to John, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.  He is not the Spirit of Opinion.  And while the many languages that were explained by Babel are still present, each person hears the truth, that Jesus is Lord and all that flows from who Jesus is, from the lips of the disciples in his or her own language.  No longer are opinions just being tossed about, but the truth is delivered, and the truth is convincing. 
            This gift of the Spirit of Truth did not end on Pentecost, as if it were a one-time event.  The Holy Spirit continues to pour Himself out to the apostles and disciples in the Church.  Through the successors of the apostles, the bishops, in union with the successor of St. Peter, the Pope, the Spirit fulfills Jesus’ promise to St. Peter that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church and that what the apostles would be inspired to hold bound or loosed on earth would be held bound or loosed in heaven.  This gift is called the Magisterium: the bishops in union with the Pope, who teach, without error, on matters of faith and morals, like on who Jesus is, marriage, ordination, and contraception.
            But the disciples, too, are gifted with the Holy Spirit, to be persevered in the Truth.  Vatican II, in the document Lumen gentium, put it this way: “The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief…when ‘from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful’ they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.  It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience…”  The lay faithful are guided by the Spirit, and, under obedience to the Magisterium, are kept in the truth so that what is believed about God, faith, and morals is not simply a matter of opinion, but is protected by the Holy Spirit as true and right. 
            Does this mean that the Church has every detail figured out?  Certainly not.  There are still prudential decisions to apply the truth to everyday situations.  But these decisions should not simply be based upon opinions, as if we decide what is right and wrong, but should be based upon the principles of faith and morality which are united to the Spirit of Truth.
            The gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is a great gift of Jesus to His Body, the Church, because it saves us from the endless babbling of opinions on what should be believed and how one should live.  There are so many voices that tell us that we should believe this or do that because they know better.  Even some Christian ecclesial communities have started to reject the parts of Scripture that do not fit modern “sensibilities.”  In the midst of this babbling, we have a sure guide in the Pope and the Bishops united with him who are protected from preaching error in matters of faith and morals because of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And the you, lay faithful are also given the Spirit to lead you to believe and to hold on to what is taught by the successors to the apostles.  Rather than being divided among our own opinions of what we think we should believe and how we think we should live, let us be united in the Spirit of Truth in the Church so that the Gospel may be proclaimed to every language under heaven.