Reconstructing Babel

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, 5 May 2013

        My brothers and sisters, what a wonderful image our readings give to us today: the gathering of the nations through the Holy Spirit. While Paul, Barnabas, Silas and Barsabbas are working to bring the Gentiles into the Faith, we have the vision of the Beloved Disciple – Saint John – showing us the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem, built out of us, the living stones of the Church of Jesus Christ. Both of these readings are summed up in our Responsorial Psalm, “Let all the earth cry out with joy to the Lord!” It’s just not this world that is to cry with joy, but, more importantly, the world that is to come – that vision of John.

        Yet, turning our eyes to the Gospel, we come to see the dynamic promise that is given to us by Jesus: Those who are united to Him, and allow the work of the Spirit to guide them, will be led to the fullness of the Kingdom of God. The key is – and always is! – the Holy Spirit. As we prepare for the great moments of the Ascension and Decent of the Spirit at Pentecost, we come to welcome and to realize the role we play in the workings of God.

        A train of thought came to me in reflecting on our Scripture for this weekend: Reconstructing Babel. If we remember the story of Babel from the Book of Genesis, we know that humanity got full of itself and tried to become equal with God through the creation of a tower that would reach God in the heavens. The Lord knew that, ultimately, this would not end well for us, so He confused the people by dis-unification of their language, and not being able to understand each other, the project was abandoned.

        But now enter in Jesus Christ, God-made-man, many years later, and through the power of the Spirit, gave to His Church, His Body, the ability to reconstruct Babel. The key difference is that when the Lord stopped the building of Babel in the Old Testament, humanity was building the tower for the glory of itself. When Jesus, through the power of the Spirit, begins the reconstruction of Babel, He does so knowing that those who are rebuilding the tower do so not for their own glory, but the ultimate glory of God.

        The Holy Spirit gathers us together when we work together for the glory of God. This is seen in John’s vision of the New Jerusalem. Being gathered together as the City of God, we come to realize that it is not Babel that we are reconstructing, but truly the New Jerusalem that is being constructed through us, by us, and with us when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

        What Paul, Silas, Barnabas, Barsabbas, and John all remind us of today is rooted in the Gospel: When we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, when we fulfill our mission in the Body of Christ, we are gathered into right-worship of God. And when we are gathered for that right-worship, we enter into the peace which Christ promises us. Our worship of God and our living out the covenant with Him and with our neighbor should be the entryway by which we receive the peace of the Lord, and thereby bring others to know Christ and to know His peace.

        But if we want to reconstruct Babel, if we want to build the New Jerusalem, then we will work for this peace. Of course, this peace is not the hippy peace of the 1960s and 1970s, but rather is the recognized internal dwelling of the Triune God within the temples of our bodies, of our lives. An unknown author fittingly puts it this way:

Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

        THIS is the peace of Christ: To see the insanity of humanity in the world, and to know that it’s still all alright. The peace of Christ is that which truly gathers us together as one; it is the glue, the mortar which holds together those living stones in the New Jerusalem. It is that gift from God which allows us to give back to Him the praise through the living out of our lives to the honor and glory of His Name.

        When we allow ourselves to come together to build the New Jerusalem, to reconstruct Babel, then we have the opportunity to enter into the place in which we will come to dwell; we will enter into the Divine Mystery of life – not just here, but the here-after. When we come together in the peace of Christ, we recognize what it says at the entrance of our church, that “this is none other than the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” And we come to live out a unity founded upon the peace of Christ that was lost when Babel was abandoned – a unity not based in our humanity alone, but based in the knowledge that we are, first and foremost, the children of God, and He wishes for us to be gathered together.

        This is why the Church celebrates the Mass! We come to gather with all the people of our Faith – present or not, alive or dead, we all gather around the table unified in our belief in the promises of Christ, given to us in the Sacraments, and lived out through the actions of the Holy Spirit. And, again, the Holy Spirit is the key to it all. If we’re not open to the Spirit, if we’re not open to receiving the ultimate gift of peace that He gives, then we are not ready to be builders of the Kingdom of God.

        Monday evening / Tomorrow evening, our eighth-grade students will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. While becoming fully initiated into the life of the Church, they will also have the opportunity, for the first time, to live out the fullness of Christ’s peace in their lives while making the conscious decision to keep Christ as the center of their lives; discovering in their own way, through the power of the Holy Spirit, how they are to help in the reconstruction of Babel, the building of the New Jerusalem. And as we pray for these students and celebrate this milestone in their life of faith, we should pause and ask ourselves: How is the Lord continuing to call me as a builder in and for His Kingdom? How do I live out His gift of peace?

        Last month, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of Pacem in Terris, “Peace on Earth”, given to us by our late Holy Father, Blessed Pope John XXIII. In this encyclical, he spells out what the Gospel vision of peace is, and what in our modern world – yes!, even the modern world of 2013 – is endangering that peace. Blessed John reminds us that when humanity takes the issue of peace into its own hands, that peace will never be secure, because it is fleeting, not based on something or someone who is greater than us. Yet he reminds us that peace rooted in Christ is the one thing that will unite humanity, because we see peace not only as something that is worth striving for, but, ultimately, as something that is freely given to us by God, a gift that is ours for the taking when we just ask for it. He concludes the encyclical with these words:

Let us, then, pray with all fervor for this peace which our divine Redeemer came to bring us. May He banish from the souls of men whatever might endanger peace. May He transform all men into witnesses of truth, justice and brotherly love. May He illumine with His light the minds of rulers, so that, besides caring for the proper material welfare of their peoples, they may also guarantee them the fairest gift of peace.

Finally, may Christ inflame the desires of all men to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another, and to pardon those who have done them wrong. Through His power and inspiration may all peoples welcome each other to their hearts as brothers, and may the peace they long for ever flower and ever reign among them. 

         If we want to reconstruct Babel, if we want to enjoy the promises found in the New Jerusalem, then we must urge one another to gather in the peace which only Christ can give. It is then and there, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we will give God the glory and honor that is rightly His. It is there that the work accomplished by Paul, Silas, Barnabas, Barsabbas, John, you, me, and all the saints of heaven will be recognized. It is there that we proudly acclaim, “Let all the earth cry out with joy to the Lord! Alleluia!”

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Enjoy the journey . . .