In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost Spirit we are given a glimpse of God’s plans for humanity’s future. Part of that plan is the merciful reversal of the tragic diversity of human tongues, that curse imposed by heaven when human pride attempted to construct the tower of Babel. At Pentecost, that curse is reversed, and the healing of our fragmentation is begun.
At Pentecost the divine Paraclete created a new People, with a single new religious identity and a single new language. The new language is not just another transient human dialect. The Spirit bestows a higher gift than clumsy human speech. The new language is the sublime language of Christian faith: Jesus is Lord! This is the new tongue, and the only one, that can reunite a divided humanity.
The Church’s mission began in flame and whirlwind. The mighty works of God are miraculously understood in all the divisive human languages of the world. This is an icon of God’s plan for the human race. The Catholic Church is empowered to reunite mankind in the new faith, that new faith which our Lord’s earliest disciples expressed in a simple dogmatic proclamation: Jesus is Lord.
Here is the primordial dogmatic truth of our religion, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully human, and divine. All else flows from that. To preach that truth to the world is the purpose of the Church’s existence. That simple creed is the basis of our entire Christian life.
Jesus is Lord. To believe this and to live it is the only way for any of us to become truly human. To believe it and to live it is the only way for any of us to get to heaven. A blessing I wish for us all.