Receive the holy Spirit

SUNDAY – PENTECOST – 31 MAY (Jn 20,19-23)

With the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives mandate to his Apostles to build the city of God, in opposition to the city of men, whose name is Babel. Let us read in Genesis: “The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words. While men 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.” Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men 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 and there 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 11,1-9). Babel is the city of pride, creator of confusion and distancing men from each other. It is also the great city of idolatry and immorality. In the prophets, Babel will soon be replaced with Babylon, the city of injustice, idolatry, immorality, slavery and every vice.

Who is sent by the Father and by Christ Jesus to build the new city, in which the new humanity must live, it also to be built and assembled, is the Holy Spirit. But not alone, but through the Apostles of Jesus. These, in the Holy Spirit and for him, must build the new humanity, baptizing each man and regenerating him as a new creature, aggregating him to the new city which is the body of Christ, his Church. The newly regenerated and newly aggregated must be nourished with the love of the Father, the grace of Christ Jesus and the truth and the light of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles must carry out this work without any interruption. Never might the Spirit work, if they don’t work. The new city is not built and not even the new humanity might be regenerated. It is the Apostles and Bishops, their successors, in communion with each other and with Simon Peter, their Supreme Shepherd in truth and charity who are in Christ Jesus, the Fathers, who will have to form the body of Christ with the addition of new members; they will have to perpetually nourish it with grace and truth, with light and eternal life, they must keep it in the charity of the Father, in the life of Christ and in the holiness of the Spirit of God. If they, omitting their ministry of light and grace, of regeneration and nourishment of the body of Christ, they dedicate themselves to something else, the new humanity will never be built and the holy city which is the body of Christ will never be built on our earth.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Collaborators of the Apostles in the construction of the body of Christ and in the regeneration and creation of the new humanity are the priests, the deacons and each confirmed and baptized. Everyone must participate with his particular charisma, special ministry, singular vocation and mission. If even one person deprives the Holy Spirit of his work, the construction of the city slows down his works and the body of Christ does not shine with all the power of his light and love. That is St. Paul: “And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ” (Ef 4,11-13). Each is asked for his work.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints make us builders of the body of Christ and the new humanity.