The Language of Love

The first public comment about the new community of Jesus’ disciples after the resurrection was that they spoke a language everyone understood. Pentecost corrects the experience of the Tower of Babel, where almost no one spoke a language anyone else could understand.

If Babel was an attempt to resist the dispersion of people and to play God, Pentecost is an act of God’s Spirit to dispel fear and empower the new community, Christians, to travel to every corner of the world, bringing a new language that every human being can understand.

What is this language that anyone, beyond the constraints of space, time, or culture, can understand? It is the language of love, the language of the Spirit of God. It is the language that Christians are called to speak and unite in.

Our parish is not only a multicultural parish but also an intercultural one. We are not a parish made up of several cultures, but a Christian community made up of different cultures that interact, relate, celebrate, rejoice, mourn, pray, enrich, and have fun with one another. Many cultures, but one heart, one faith, one God, one family. The family of the parish of Mission San Luis Rey.

Today we celebrate Pentecost, and we celebrate that despite our differences in culture, language, and ways of dressing, thinking, and acting, we are guided by the Holy Spirit, and all speak the same language of love. We celebrate that our differences don’t make us weak but strong, and that instead of separating us, they unite us, making us grow in love as brothers and sisters. We celebrate that the culture of others enriches me and makes me more of a brother or sister, more of a Christian, more of a son or daughter of God.

Let us celebrate who we are, the Church, and let us ask God that we may grow more in the language of love every day.

May the Lord always grant you his peace!

Fr. Lalo Jara, OFM Pastor,
Mission San Luis Rey Parish