Pentecost Sunday

A friend of mine from "across the pond", Marion, posted this thought on Facebook last year at Pentecost. With her permission, I'm sharing it here. 

Thanks, Marion.

"how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?"

We are not told what the Apostles were actually saying, but there doesn't appear to be any disagreement about the content. They were just puzzled that they heard the SAME message in different languages!

And I suddenly got to thinking: this is how the Church speaks to us today. The same message in different languages.

What languages? What is your language?

The language of private prayer and meditation?
The language of mysticism, miracles and apparitions?
The language of formal liturgies, the offices of the day?
The language of fasting, abstinence and mortification?
The language of scripture?
The language of active care for others: the sick and the poor?
The language of open and social evangelism?

and so on...

But if the Church speaks in all these languages, sometimes it can happen that individuals believe, wrongly, that their language is the main one, or even the only one and try to inflict that view on those around them. Then you get poor bewildered souls thinking "the Church doesn't speak my language". And you get splinter groups. You get all the protestant denominations.

I was so busy thinking of all this that I found I wasn't paying very good attention to the rest of the Mass.

A happy and blessed Pentecost Sunday to you all.

Come Holy Spirit - and speak to us in whatever language we'll understand.