The coming of the Holy Spirit is a dramatic event in the New Testament. One moment the Apostles are alone in the Upper Room, then the Spirit descends and they are driven out into the streets to proclaim the Risen Lord Jesus. People from all over the world hear them as though they were speaking in those people’s languages. The division of people by language at the tower of Babel, where human beings thought they could get to heaven without God, is reversed, as the Holy Spirit unifies the languages of people brought together by the action of Jesus through the Spirit. As Peter tells them, “There is no other name (apart from Jesus) by which we can be saved.” The arrogance of Babel is replaced by the humility of those whose desire is to be saved through the Resurrection of the Lord.
The modern world really thinks it can be saved, achieve perfection, by its own effort, that we can, in fact, save ourselves. But la lunatic cannot heal himself, nor an insolvent pay his own way out of debt. We all need help from outside; and that is what salvation means. We cannot save ourselves, as men thought at Babel; but we can be saved by God himself. Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2 makes this clear, for his message is simple: He is Risen! He is Lord! He has ascended! He will come again! Repent, believe and be baptised. This is the simple apostolic message which the Church has handed down faithfully through the ages, which by the work of the Holy Spirit, has been spread throughout the world for 20 centuries. It is our work still; to proclaim Jesus as Lord, the only source of salvation, the only source of true unity and peace, a peace “the world cannot give.”
On this celebration of Pentecost, let us take this message to heart. We are the bearers of the Good News, we are called by God to be his witnesses throughout the earth. Let us go forth from this Mass today and become just that. He is Risen! He is Lord! Let us carry this message to the world by both word and deed.
Fr. Phillip
