Pentecost - A Revolutionary Work of
the Holy Spirit
From the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2:
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem
Jews, devout men from every nation under
heaven. And at this sound the multitude
came together, and they were bewildered,
because each one heard them speaking in
his own language. And they were amazed
and wondered, saying, “Are not all these
who are speaking Galileans? And how is
it that we hear, each of us in his own
native language? Parthians and Medes and
Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia,
Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the
parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and
visitors from Rome, both Jews and
proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we
hear them telling in our own tongues the
mighty works of God.” And all were
amazed and perplexed, saying to one
another, “What does this mean?” (Acts
2:5-13)
This scene is repeating itself among us
today. We too have come “from every nation
under heaven,” and we are here to proclaim
together “the mighty works of God.”
There is, however, something else to
discover in this part of the story of
Pentecost. Since ancient times it has been
understood that the author of Acts
– and
this means first of all the Holy Spirit!
–
through this insistence on the phenomenon of
tongues, wanted to make us understand, that
at Pentecost something takes place that
reverses what happened at Babel. The Spirit
transforms the linguistic chaos of Babel
into a new harmony of voices. This explains
why the account of Babel in Genesis 11 is
traditionally inserted among the biblical
readings for the Pentecost Vigil.
The builders of Babel were not, as it was
once thought, wicked people who intended to
defy God, a kind of equivalent of the Titans
of Greek mythology. No, they were pious and
religious people. The tower they wanted to
construct was a temple to the divinity, one
of those temples with layered terraces
called ziggurat, whose ruins can still be
found in Mesopotamia.
What then was their sin? Let us listen to
what they said among themselves when they
started to work on it: “They said, ‘Come,
let us build ourselves a city, and a tower
with its top in the heavens, and let us make
a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth’”
(Genesis 11:4). Martin Luther makes an
illuminating observation about these words:
“Let us build ourselves a city and a tower”:
let us build it for ourselves, not for
God... “Let us make a name for ourselves”
–
let us do it for ourselves. The people take
no concern for the name of God to be
glorified; they are concerned with making
their own name great.
In other words, God is being exploited; he
must serve their desire for power. They
perhaps thought, according to the mindset at
that time, that by offering sacrifices from
a great height they could win victories from
the divinity over the neighboring peoples.
This is the reason God was forced to
confound their languages and derail their
project.
This suddenly brings the matter of Babel and
its builders very close to us. How many of
the divisions among Christians have been due
to a secret desire to make a name for
ourselves, to elevate ourselves above
others, to relate to God from a superior
position in comparison to others! How many
have been due to the desire to make a name
for ourselves or for our own church more
than for God! This is where our Babel comes
from!
Let us turn now to Pentecost. Here too we
see a group of men, the apostles, who are
preparing to build a tower that goes from
earth to heaven, the Church. At Babel they
still spoke one single language, but at a
certain point people no longer understood
one another; at Pentecost all the people are
speaking different languages, but everyone
understands the apostles. Why? It is because
the Holy Spirit had brought about a
Copernican revolution in them.
Before this moment the apostles were also
preoccupied with making a name for
themselves, and they often discussed “who
among them was the greatest.” Now the Holy
Spirit has shifted their focus away from
themselves and refocused them on Christ. The
heart of stone has been shattered, and in
its place beats “a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel
36:26). As Jesus had promised before leaving
them, they were “baptized in the Holy
Spirit” (see Act 1:5-8), that is, they were
completely submerged in the ocean of God’s
love that was poured out upon them (see
Romans 5:5).
They are dazzled by the glory of God. Their
speaking in diverse languages can also be
explained by the fact that they were
speaking with their eyes, with their faces,
with their hands, with the amazement of
people who have seen things too lofty to put
in words. “We hear them telling in our own
tongues the mighty works of God.” The reason
they all understood the apostles is that
they were no longer speaking about
themselves but about God!
God is calling us to bring about that same
conversion in our lives
– a
conversion from ourselves to God, from the
smaller unity of our parish, our movement,
our own church, to the greater unity that is
the unity of the whole body of Christ,
indeed of all of humanity. It is the bold
step that Pope Francis is urging us
Catholics to take and that representatives
of other churches assembled here demonstrate
they want to share!
St. Augustine had already made it clear that
ecclesial communion takes place by degrees
and can occur on different levels: from a
full degree which consists in sharing both
the sacraments and the interior grace of the
Holy Spirit, to a partial degree that
consists in sharing the same Holy Spirit.
St. Paul included in his communion “all
those who in every place call on the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and
ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). This is a formula
that we perhaps need to rediscover and go
back to appreciating. Today that communion
also includes our brothers and sisters who
are Messianic Jews.
The Pentecostal and charismatic phenomenon
has a specific vocation and responsibility
in regard to the unity of Christians. Its
ecumenical vocation appears even more
evident if we think back to what happened at
the beginning of the Church. What did the
Risen One do to prompt the apostles to
welcome the Gentiles into the Church? God
sent the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his
household in the same way and with the same
manifestations with which he had sent the
Spirit on the apostles at the beginning.
Peter could therefore only draw the
conclusion that “If then God gave the same
gift to them as he gave to us when we
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I
that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:17).
At the Council of Jerusalem Peter repeated
this same argument: God “made no distinction
between us and them” (Acts 15:9).
Now we have seen this marvel repeated before
our very eyes, this time on a worldwide
scale. God has poured out his Holy Spirit on
millions of believers who belong to almost
all the Christian denominations and, lest
there be any doubt about his intentions, he
has poured out his Spirit with the identical
manifestations, including the most unique
one of speaking in tongues. We too are left
to draw the same conclusion that Peter did:
“If God then has given them the same gift he
gave us, who are we to continue to say that
other Christian believers do not belong to
the body of Christ and are not true
disciples of Christ?”
The
Charismatic Path to Christian Unity
We need to look at what the
charismatic path to unity involves. St. Paul
outlined this plan for the Church: “speak
the truth in love” (see Ephesians 4:15).
What we must not do is bypass the issues of
faith and of doctrine in order to be united
in the sphere of shared action in
evangelization and social issues. Ecumenism
experimented with this path at its beginning
and experienced its failure. Divisions
inevitably resurface quite soon, even in the
sphere of action. We must not substitute
charity for truth but rather aim for truth
with charity; we need to begin to love one
another in order to understand each other
better.
The extraordinary thing about this
ecumenical path based on love is that it is
possible at once; the way is completely open
before us. We cannot “cut corners”
concerning doctrine because there are indeed
differences that are to be resolved with
patience in the appropriate settings.
However, we can skip some steps concerning
love and be united right now.
It is the only “debt” that we have toward
others (cf. Romans 13:8). We can welcome and
love one another despite our differences.
Christ did not command us to love only those
who think the way we do and who fully share
our creed. If we love only those people, he
warned us, what is special about that since
the pagans also do that? (cf. Matthew 5:46)
We can love each other because what already
unites us is infinitely more important than
what divides us. What unites us is the same
faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit; the Lord Jesus, true God and true
man; the shared hope of eternal life; the
common commitment to evangelization; the
shared love for the body of Christ, the
Church.
Another important thing also unites us: the
shared suffering and shared martyrdom for
Christ. In so many parts of the world,
believers from different churches are
sharing the same sufferings and enduring the
same martyrdom for Christ. They are not
being persecuted and killed because they are
Catholic, or Anglicans, or Pentecostals or
from some other denomination, but because
they are “Christians.” In the eyes of the
world we are already one single group, and
it is a shame if we are not also that in
reality.
Unity
and Love
How do we concretely put into
practice this message of unity and love? Let
us recall St. Paul’s hymn of charity. Each
of his phrases acquires a new significance
when applied to love among the members of
the various Christian churches in ecumenical
relationships:
Love is patient...
Love is not boastful...
Loves is not rude....
Love does not seek its own interest (in
our case, the interests of other churches
as well). Love keeps no record of wrongs
(in our case, the wrongs suffered from the
hands of other Christians, but rather the
wrongs done to them) (see 1 Corinthians
13:4ff)
St. Francis [of Assisi] in one of his
Admonitions says, “Blessed is the servant
who rejoices in the good that God does
through others as if he had done it through
him.” We can say, “Blessed is that Christian
who is able to rejoice at the good that God
does through other churches just as he is
for the good that God does through his own
church.”
***
The prophet Haggai has an oracle that seems
to be written for us in this moment of
history. The people of Israel had just
returned from exile, but rather than
rebuilding the house of God together, each
of them was building and adorning their own
houses. God thus sends his prophet with a
message of reproof:
Is it a time for you yourselves
to dwell in your paneled houses, while
this house lies in ruins? Now therefore
thus says the LORD of
hosts: Consider how you have fared. You
have sown much, and harvested little....
Consider how you have fared. Go up to the
hills and bring wood and build the house,
that I may take pleasure in it and that I
may appear in my glory, says the Lord.
(Haggai1:4-8)
We need to hear how this same reproof from
God might be addressed to us and to repent.
Those who listened to Peter’s discourse on
the day of Pentecost “were cut to the heart,
and said to Peter and the rest of the
apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ And
Peter said to them, ‘Repent, ... and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit’”(Acts 2:37-38). A renewed outpouring
of the Holy Spirit will not be possible
without a collective movement of repentance
on the part of all Christians. It will be
one of the main intentions of the prayer
that will follow this time of sharing.
After the people of Israel set about
rebuilding the temple of God, the prophet
Haggai was once again sent to the people,
but this time with a message of
encouragement and consolation:
Now take courage, O Zerubbabel,
says the LORD; take
courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the
high priest; take courage, all you people
of the land, says the LORD;
work, for I am with you. My Spirit abides
among you; fear not. (Haggai 2:4-5).
That same word of consolation is now
addressed to us Christians, and I dare to
make it resound again in this place, not
just as a biblical citation but as the
living and efficacious word of God that is
bringing about here and now what it
signifies: “Take courage, Pope Francis! Take
courage, leaders and representatives of
other Christian confessions! Take courage,
all you people of God, and work because I am
with you, says the Lord! My Spirit will be
with you.”
Translated
from Italian by Marsha Daigle-Williamson
Source:
http://www.ccrgoldenjubilee2017.net/fr-raniero-cantalamessa/
