Sermon 271
SERMO 271
ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST
The Church prefigured by tongues.
A pleasant day, brothers, has dawned upon us, wherein the holy Church shines before the eyes of the faithful and burns in their hearts. Indeed, we celebrate this day on which the Lord Jesus Christ, glorified by His ascension after the resurrection, sent the Holy Spirit. For it is written in the Gospel, when He said: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink; whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from his belly: the evangelist follows up and explains, and says: He said this about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Therefore, it was necessary that Jesus, having been glorified, after He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, would now send the Holy Spirit, whom He had promised: as has been done. For the Lord, after conversing with His disciples for forty days following the resurrection, ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day, which we celebrate today, sent the Holy Spirit, as it is written: there came a sound from heaven, as if a mighty wind were borne; and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them, resting on each one: and they began to speak in all tongues, as the Spirit gave them to pronounce. That breath cleansed hearts of carnal chaff; that fire consumed the old desire of the flesh; those tongues by which they spoke, filled by the Holy Spirit, prefigured the future Church through the languages of all nations. For just as after the flood the arrogant impiety of men built a high tower against the Lord, when by diverse languages the human race deserved to be divided, so that each nation spoke its own tongue, not understood by others: so the humble piety of the faithful conferred the diversity of those languages to the unity of the Church; so that what discord had scattered, charity might gather, and the scattered members of the human race, as of one body, might be reintegrated to one head, Christ, and be melted into the unity of the holy body by the fire of love. Therefore, those who hate the grace of peace, who do not maintain the bond of unity, are entirely alien to this gift of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, though they may also gather solemnly today, though they hear these readings by which the Holy Spirit is promised and sent: they hear to their judgment, not to their reward. For what benefit do they gain by receiving with their ears what they spurn in their hearts; and celebrating His day, whose light they hate? But you, my brothers, members of the body of Christ, offspring of unity, children of peace, observe this day joyfully, celebrate it securely. For this is fulfilled in you, what was prefigured in those days when the Holy Spirit came. Because just as then one person who received the Holy Spirit spoke in all languages: so now through all nations in all languages the same unity speaks, in which having been established, you have the Holy Spirit; who, in speaking by the Church of Christ in all languages, does not dissent through any schism.