Sunday Meditation: Speaking in Tongues and the Tower of Babel

Today’s most important reading I believe is the first reading.

 

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 native language?

We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,

inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,

Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,

Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,

as well as travelers from Rome,

both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,

yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues

of the mighty acts of God.”

        -Acts 2:1:11 

What is interesting is that the Vigil reading to Pentecost Sunday is different, and it’s Genesis 11:1-11, the passage pertaining to the Tower of Babel.   Let me post that side by side for your comparison and meditation. 

The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.

While the people were migrating in the east,

they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.

They said to one another,

"Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire."

They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city

and a tower with its top in the sky,

and so make a name for ourselves;

otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth."

 

The LORD came down to see the city and the tower

that the people had built.

Then the LORD said: ""If now, while they are one people,

all speaking the same language,

they have started to do this,

nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do.

Let us then go down there and confuse their language,

so that one will not understand what another says.""

Thus the LORD scattered them from there all over the earth,

and they stopped building the city.

That is why it was called Babel,

because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world.

It was from that place that he scattered them all over the earth.

        -Gen 11:1:11

So in what way is the diversity of language central to both passages?

Happy Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the Church.