Today is Pentecost Sunday. This day takes on a whole new light in an election year. Amidst all the campaign double-speak, all the customized messages aimed at special interest groups to tell them truths they want to hear, today’s first reading tells us how the Holy Spirit filled Christ’s disciples with the ability to speak many languages but a single truth everyone needed to hear. That holy truth blasted through the frailties of human speech and touched the universal heart of humanity on that first Pentecost.
“How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? … we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.’
Even with today’s interlinked online networks designed to unite the cultures of the world, our frail natures have only succeeded in building a more polarizing Tower of Babel. Many who covet what Christ told us were “the things that are Caesar’s” dedicate their lives to reaching Babel’s top floor.
Today’s readings assure us that the Holy Spirit is still among us to help us render to God the things that are God’s. It’s a short list, but one we must dedicate our lives to sharing with each other: truth and love. As the second reading states:
“We were baptised into one body in a single Spirit, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as free men, and we were all given the same Spirit to drink.”
Filled with that spirit, maybe we can all help restore some honor to Caesar’s domain.