When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language?”
Traditional religious art depicts this scene and the metaphors describing it very literally, usually with a shaped small flame over the heads of each of them.
From St. Paul we learned that some of the early Christians aspired to have this gift of the Spirit and began to “speak in tongues”—in the sense of unintelligible language—and sometimes another person, with a gift of interpretation, would “translate” what was being said.
In contemporary times, some pious charismatic Christians similarly aspire to “speak in tongues” the way the Bible appears to depict it.
To understand fully the story of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles one needs to recall the story of the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis. The builders of the tower were so presumptuous in their pride that they sought to construct it high enough to reach heaven, the abode of God.
God punished them by confounding their communication. They began to speak in different languages and could no longer understand one another. (That’s why we call unintelligible speech “babbling”.)
At Pentecost, the promised fullness of the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples—new dynamism, energy, vital force, power. Their new spirit was astoundingly effective.
Their speech had fire—a metaphor not in the modern sense of a destructive consuming force but in the pre-modern sense of a blazing energy providing light to see by, warmth to defend against the cold, and a focal point to bring people closer together around it.
The miracle we celebrate at Pentecost was a miracle of communication and solidarity. Somehow, empowered by the fullness of the power of God, which is love, the message of the disciples was understood by everyone together, even though they were otherwise divided by different ways of speaking.
Tradition has it that St. Francis of Assisi taught his followers, “Preach the Gospel always, and, if necessary, use words.”
A similar thought is succinctly stated by “Actions speak louder than words.”
We may have a rich and sophisticated vocabulary, we may be confident public speakers, we may even know many a trick and art of rhetoric, but . . . as St. Paul beautifully put it:
“If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” My tongue may be wagging and my words may be flowing, but it’s through the power of my love that I really communicate.
23 June 2019