The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

"The Savior" by Juan de Juanes

    It’s so hard for us to fully accept that the Infinite God of the Universe could fully inhabit a human body, and be both True God and True Man. I used to find myself confronting this thorny paradox in a very vivid way when I discussed the Christological Heresies with my adolescent religion students.  The Arians could accept the human Jesus, but not his Divinity; the Docetists had no problem with Christ the Son of God, but they were sure his Humanity was just a show; the Monophysites could understand that Jesus was both man and God, but insisted that he had only one, Divine, nature . . . and so on.  

    These and numerous other incomplete answers to the puzzle presented to our finite minds by the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity have been with us from the earliest days of the Church to the present day.  The Council of Chalcedon gave a definitive answer in A.D. 451, when it declared that Christ is

made known in two natures without confusion [i.e. mixture], without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union, but the property of each nature being preserved and coalescing in one prosopon [person] and one hypostasis [subsistence]--not parted or divided into two prosopa [persons], but one and the same Son, only-begotten, divine Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.

    As hard as it is to accept that Jesus Christ is both fully God and a true man with a human body, however, we Catholic Christians are asked to accept an even harder teaching: that the same body is truly present in the Eucharistic bread and wine offered up at every Mass.  Furthermore, as Christ Himself tells us,

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. (John 6:55-57)

Many of his disciples found this teaching too hard to accept, and went away.  Today’s Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ reminds, however, as Peter points out (John 6:68), that we have nowhere else to go, and only by eating the Body and Drinking the Blood of the God-Become-Man can we share in his eternal life.  

    There’s the wonder.  Christ has a human body, and so the Infinite God shares in our humanity; not only that, He shares that body with us in the Eucharist, and thereby lets us participate in His divinity.  No wonder we call it “Gospel”, that is, “Good News.” Yes, it is hard to believe, but, as today’s feast reminds us, it is, quite simply, The Truth.

Ireland, Post-Christianity and Eternity

     My, how the world has changed. The dust is still settling from the referendum in Ireland last week in which voters repealed the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which protected the right of unborn babies to live.  The outcome was a bitter disappointment, but not really a surprise.  Perhaps more surprising to many of us (although it ought not to have been: see below) was the margin of the pro-abortion victory: 67%-33%, a thunderous landslide. Ironically, the amendment was voted in by the same margin just 35 years ago, except in 1983 67% of Irish voters cast their ballots in favor of protecting unborn life. The dramatic reversal reminds me of the tune played by the British military bands when they surrendered to George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army at Yorktown: “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Crowd in Dublin cheers abolition of Irish pro-life amendment (AP)

    Clearly, much has changed in Ireland over the last three and a half decades, and there are certainly plenty of local factors that have played a role in the change.  I don’t believe, however, that the change is a purely Irish one, or even largely local. Despite a strong historical identification with Catholicism, the Emerald Isle has been following the same secularizing trend that has captured the rest of Western Europe.  According to research done by the Pew Center, only 37% percent of Irish attend religious services weekly or monthly; that’s better than any other Western European nation other than Italy, but it’s still well under half of the population (and it has been shown that oftentimes people are untruthful on this question, exaggerating church attendance figures). A larger figure, 41%, report they “seldom or never” go to church.  Only 19% pray daily, 24% believe in God “with absolute certainty”, and only 69% believe in God at all.

     The Irish are only marginally better, if at all, than other Europeans in these categories. We see similar trends in the United States, where, according to the Barna Group,

The pattern is indisputable: The younger the generation, the more post-Christian it is. Nearly half of Millennials (48%) qualify as post-Christian compared to two-fifths of Gen X-ers (40%), one-third of Boomers (35%) and one-quarter of Elders (28%).

     The entire western world is abandoning Christianity, and at a rapid rate. Needless to say, these changes carry some very concrete consequences. Pew also reports, for instance, that the higher the level of religious commitment, the more likely a person is to be involved with charitable organizations and, in fact, every sort of community group (except athletic ones).  Arthur Brooks details similar findings in the United States in his book Who Really Cares?  These numbers show that fewer believing Christians means less charitable giving, less involvement in charitable causes, less self-sacrifice for the good of others; in other words, if I may be blunt, a more selfish, self-centered society.  This de-Christianizing trend intensifies over time, because the more disconnected they are from any practice of religion, the harder it becomes for people to recognize even the largely material goods provided by the Church: Barna reports that

When the unchurched were asked to describe what they believe are the positive and negative contributions of Christianity in America, almost half (49%) could not identify a single favorable impact of the Christian community, while nearly two-fifths (37%) were unable to identify a negative impact.

Pew reports similar outcomes in Europe. This is despite the massive amount of wealth, material and effort Christians have put into helping the poor and disadvantaged over the past two millennia.

From The Phillip Medhurst Picture Torah

     Given all that, we should not be surprised that Christian moral teachings, particularly those that demand self-sacrifice or denial of powerful desires, are less popular than ever, and rapidly becoming less so.  From the very beginning of time the Tempter has been whispering in our ears that “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5), if only we would give in to our desires, instead of following the path of self-denial.  How hard is it to resist him when we have no faith, or perhaps only a shallow faith, to fortify us?  How much harder now that the institutions that dominate our culture, which in the past reinforced morality, have today switched sides, and take Satan’s side in the debate (take note: every major political party in Ireland endorsed repeal of the 8th amendment)? Small wonder, then, that Pew's figures show the people of once Catholic Ireland favoring legal abortion by a margin of 66-30% (those who self-identify as “highly committed Christians” are the only group in which a majority opposes it).  Consequently, small wonder that Irish voters abolished the protection of unborn life by roughly the same margin.

     Well then, where does that leave us?  Am I saying that we are going to Hell in the proverbial handbasket?  Ultimately, no, as our Lord has promised us that “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against his Church (Matthew 16:17). “Prevail”, however, is statement about where things will end; a lot can happen in the meanwhile, not all of it good. The fact is that an enormous amount of damage can occur, to individual souls and to entire populations, before our wayward society comes to its senses.

     Very often it is the damage itself that helps bring about the change.  As St. Paul tells us, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:48). The familiar phrase “hitting rock bottom” applies here.  This is a very important concept in Alcoholics Anonymous and related 12 Step groups.  An alcoholic “hits rock bottom” when the damage and pain caused by his drinking become so severe and painful that he has to admit his life is beyond his control, and that he needs to turn to God to save him from his self-destructive desires.  Our culture, it would seem, needs to hit rock bottom before it begins to turn back to God.  Who can say how long that will take, or how many souls will be lost in the process?  I am painfully reminded of Adam Smith’s remark that “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”  We should also not forget that the followers of Muhammed are not standing idly by while what was once called  “Christendom” breaks itself to pieces.

     However that may be, formerly Catholic Ireland’s embrace of the abortion license is a sign of what is happening throughout the historic heart of the Christian world.  There is no longer a Catholic Ireland . . . there's no longer a "Catholic" anywhere in Europe or North America (with the possible exception of Poland, and that probably not for long).  Earlier this week I republished a blog post about a radio address delivered almost half a century ago by a German Theologian named Joseph Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI).  Fr. Ratzinger foresaw a world slipping ever further into Godlessness.  In that increasingly hostile environment, Christ’s Church would become smaller - perhaps much smaller.  It would, at the same time, be a Church purified by adversity, more faithful to the Gospel, and more essential than ever:

We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

That is increasingly the choice before us if we wish to follow Jesus Christ: a small, unfashionable, and even persecuted Church, one which “will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members” than we might be used to, or be comfortable with.

     It is also clear that we will need to commit ourselves ever more faithfully to live lives worthy of our Lord.  Christ tells us,

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men. (Matthew 5:13)

 Whatever else might have been happening, the failures of prominent Catholics in the Irish church played a role in the triumph of legal abortion there, a living example of how damaging “salt that has lost its taste” can be.  If hope to do any better ourselves, we will need to rely more than ever on the help Jesus Christ offers us in the sacramental life, because the world of the future will need the Church, more than it ever has, to be a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6).

Zambians attending Mass (www.southworld.net)

     One bright spot I haven’t yet mentioned: while the historic heart of Christendom collapses, the faith still burns brightly on the periphery, particularly in Africa.  As Europe and North America increasingly revert to mission territory, I fully expect our brothers in Christ to the South will be there to help us find our way back.  However difficult things become, Christ will provide a way.  

     That, of course, is our brightest spot: the Salvation that Christ has promised, which is the foundation of Christian Hope.  Short term, the future looks grim, and we need to accept that and prepare ourselves for it. While the present defeat in Ireland is a stark sign of how far we have fallen, however,  it is not a reason for despair.  After all, the Lord has given his word:

There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-7)

Fr. Ratzinger's Prophecy

An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published 26 May 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.

Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 

    I have often heard mention of an observation made by Joseph Ratzinger long before he became Pope Benedict XVI in which he anticipated a “smaller, purer church”.  I was reminded of the this remark last week as I was wrapping up my post on St. Julia of Corsica [here], and reflecting on the fact that we seem to need to suffer many smaller defeats on the way to enjoying Christ’s final victory over sin and death.  I was curious to find out exactly what the future Pope said, and when and where he said it.

     I found that the original statement came as the last of a series of addresses that Fr. Ratzinger, at that time a professor of Theology at the University of Tübingen, delivered over the radio in Germany in 1969 [I can no longer find the full text of Fr. Ratzinger's address online, but it is included in the book Faith and the Future, published by Ignatius Press].  His prophetic vision of a “smaller, purer Church” (someone else’s paraphrase, I think, because I don’t see that wording in the original text) was broadcast on Christmas day.  It makes interesting reading going on fifty years later.

     Fr. Ratzinger starts out saying that “The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and live from the pure fullness of their faith.”  Ah yes, a call to personal holiness: that sounds good. “It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods . . .”  Hmmm, sounds like time for some self-examination.  “nor will it issue”, he says

from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality.

So far, so good.  The future of the Church lies with those who are ready to make a deep commitment to self-sacrifice, who aren’t looking for easy answers.  But how does this lead to a smaller Church?  He goes on to explain:

We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist; who does not stand on the sidelines, watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of men, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.

In other words, the corporal works of mercy may be an essential part of Christianity, but they can’t be the sole or primary focus of the Church (“I’ll show you the faith that underlies my works” James 2:18), since there are secular agencies and individuals who can perform them just as well.  Who needs the Church, if you can get the same somewhere else?  The thing that only the Church can provide is the encounter with Jesus Christ through his sacraments.  Everything else, Fr. Ratzinger says, will be burned away, but much like the man St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3:15, who “will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire”, what remains will be pure metal:

From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge - a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members . . . But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world.

     This fire-tempered, more faithful Church, Fr.  Ratzinger says, will stand as a refuge for those driven to “horror” by the spiritual poverty of a now Godless world.

     The future Pope wraps up with a peroration that is both grim and hopeful:

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

It isn't easy to follow Christ's Standard

      Fr. Ratzinger’s “prophecy” can be misunderstood.  Some commentators seem to believe that he is advocating a much smaller Church.  Not so.  He is looking at the “Signs of the Times” and extrapolating from them, tempering his predictions with the knowledge that Christ has promised that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against his Church (see Matthew 16:17).  The past half century has certainly developed just as Fr. Ratzinger suggested it would.  Church attendance has fallen as the weakly committed no longer feel the social pressure to attend Mass, the number of priests has plummeted, and most religious orders have shrunk dramatically.  At the same time, religious orders grounded in a traditional understanding of the doctrines and disciplines of the Church are growing, and we have seen an explosion of lay evangelization unlike anything the world has seen in a long time.

    It seems to me that Fr. Ratzinger’s vision of the near future of the Church, much like Paul VI’s admonitions in Humanae Vitae [here], has been more than confirmed by events since, and should serve as a serious warning of what is to come.  Christ’s final victory is guaranteed, but individuals and whole nations can be lost before its consummation.  We all still need to choose whether we’ll follow Christ’s Battle Standard, or Satan’s.

Blessed Margaret Pole, Martyred for the Church and the Family

Blessed Margaret Pole

Martyr of England. She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III. She married Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and bore five sons, including Reginald Cardinal Pole. Margaret was widowed, named countess of Salisbury, and appointed governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon, Spain. She opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Cardinal Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then beheaded her on May 28. In 1538, her other two sons were executed. She was never given a legal trial. She was seventy when she was martyred. Margaret was beatified in 1886. (from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

     I called my recent piece on St. Julia of Corsica “A Saint For Our Time”; when I think about it, I have yet to find a Saint who isn’t for our times. But today’s Saint, Blessed Margaret Pole, who gave her life in defense of the sanctity of marriage, seems especially suited to the situation of our increasingly post-Christian culture. The niece of two kings, Blessed Margaret was martyred because she refused to applaud publicly the sacrifice of Holy Matrimony to a third king’s lust.

Henry VIII

     Blessed Margaret’s antagonist, Henry VIII, could serve as a sort of patron “anti-saint” for our times. He was a man possessed of great gifts: he was given a strong, handsome, athletic body, a quick mind that he applied to writing and musical composition as well as to governing, and was entrusted with the rule of a rich and powerful kingdom. Henry never mastered himself, however, and so his prodigious talents were put at the service, not of his people, but of his equally prodigious cravings for women, wealth, and power. In the end he tried to swallow even the Church. In his later years his grossly obese body became a living image of his insatiable appetites.

     People come and go, but human nature doesn’t change. King Henry is long gone, but his imitators are still with us. Like Henry, they are not satisfied with mere tolerance or tacit assent: they require full-throated public approval, and so the Margaret Poles must be silenced. Nobody is literally being led to the block, thankfully, and pray God it never comes to that. Nevertheless, as we have seen over and over again,  those who stand up for Church, family, and traditional moral norms today, even if they do so privately, can expect to have their character blackened and their livelihoods threatened.

     I have often heard Blessed Margaret’s younger and much better known contemporary, St. Thomas More, proposed as a Patron Saint for our times because of his martyrdom in defense of the Church and Marriage. Like him, Blessed Margaret's firm reliance on Christ's loving care gave her the strength to stand fast in face of mortal threats, and the serenity not to be swallowed up in bitterness against her persecutors.  We would do well to invoke Blessed Margaret Pole along with St. Thomas More, and to pray for her intercession against the ravenous spirit of Henry VIII that yet again threatens both Faith and Family.

Trinity Sunday

   Today is Trinity Sunday, on which we celebrate one of the most mysterious of Christian Mysteries.  I find it fairly easy to understand that there can only be one infinite being, one "Divine Substance"; I can also understand that love is something necessarily directed toward another, and so a God Who is Love would want to have other Persons to love.  I have a very hard time wrapping my finite mind around how they can both be true at the same time . . .  but how could it be otherwise?  Fortunately, even if the philosophical explanations elude us, we can know the Triune God through the experience of Faith.  Thanks be to God.
     Perhaps because the Trinity is such a deep concept, there aren't a lot of Trinitarian hymns (certainly not on YouTube, anyway), but here's an old favorite, in a beautiful video created by JMJ HF videos.  I have included information about the group, which relies on charitable donations, below the video.




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St. Julia of Corsica, A Saint for Our Time

An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published 23 May 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com. 

Today is not a major feast day in the Church's liturgical calendar but, as always, there are saints whose feasts are celebrated.  One of the more interesting of today's saints is St. Julia of Corsica (also known as St. Julia of Carthage), a martyr who refused to be seduced by personal gain or cowed by the threat of torture and death.  My first post about St. Julia, published four years ago today on the blog Principium et Finis, remains one of the most visited pages on that site, a testimony to the timelessness (and the timeliness) of this saint.

St. Julia of Corsica

"St. Julia" by Gabriel Von Max

Julia was a noble maiden who lived in Carthage in the 5th century.  When that ancient city was captured and sacked by the Vandals, Julia was enslaved and sold to a Syrian merchant named Eusebius.  Despite the hardships and humiliations of her servile state she remained content, even cheerful, because of her piety and her deep love of Christ.  These same qualities greatly endeared her to her master.

   On one occasion, when Julia was on a journey with her master, he stopped at the island of Corsica where the locals were celebrating a pagan festival. Eusebius joined in the revelry; Julia, needless to say, stayed away. Her refusal to participate greatly annoyed the local governor, who, according to the account in Butler’s Lives of the Saints,

asked who this woman was who dared to insult the gods. Eusebius informed him that she was a Christian, and that all his authority over her was too weak to prevail with her to renounce her religion, but that he found her so diligent and faithful he could not part with her.

   Felix, however, was not one to take no for an answer.  First, he offered Eusebius four of his own female slaves in exchange for the one Julia; Eusebius emphatically refused to surrender her.  Next, after her master had fallen asleep, the governor approached Julia directly, offering to free her if only she would sacrifice to the pagan gods.  She answered that she was “as free as she desired to be as long as she was allowed to serve Jesus Christ.” This answer enraged Felix, who had her tortured and crucified.

    A few points stand out from the account of St. Julia’s life.  First and foremost, her devotion to Christ and her courage in the face of unspeakable suffering is an inspiration to us.  Maybe, the next time I’m tempted to “go along with the crowd” simply because I’m afraid of the disapproval or verbal abuse of others, I’ll take some strength from Julia’s fortitude in the face of much, much worse persecution.

Julia also shows us the power of example.  Clearly, her character and virtue made a large impression on her master Eusebius. While her diligence and fidelity alone were not enough to win him over to the faith, at least not right away, they did give him the courage to stand up to the governor Felix, and convince him not to give her up for, literally, any price.  None of the accounts I have seen, unfortunately, tell us anything about what eventually happened to Eusebius. One wonders whether the example of her heroic martyrdom was finally enough to make him a Christian. We do know that the witness of the martyrs was crucial to the conversion of very many people, for which reason Tertullian said: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

A Saint for Our Time

Julia's story also tells us something about the nature of sin.  I am reminded yet again of Father Richard John Neuhaus’ aphorism:  “When orthodoxy becomes optional, sooner or later it will become proscribed”.  What he meant was that simply by doing the right thing one is seen as a rebuke to those who are not doing right.  Look at Julia: she wasn’t interfering with the pagan festival, she was simply staying away. The governor, however, couldn’t tolerate anyone who was not actively endorsing his activities.  How often we have seen this same attitude today. Granted, at least in the United States, nobody is literally being crucified, although the advocates of a “New Orthodoxy” will certainly try to destroy the reputation and livelihood of anyone who does not publicly cheer for their innovations.  

The Benham Brothers

A recent example (among many) is that of the Benham Brothers, whose planned home improvement program on the HGTV network was cancelled [see here] because the brothers, who are evangelical Christians, publicly oppose abortion and gay marriage.  It appears that the activists who intimidated HGTV also successfully pressured the bank with whom the Benhams have worked for years to sever ties – at least until the counter-reaction from Christians and others concerned with the erosion of personal freedom caused them to reconsider.  The bank now claims that the whole thing was simply a misunderstanding [here].

    But sin's not the end of the story, either.  We have seen throughout the history of the Church the truth of the aphorism, "The bigger they come, the harder they fall"; zealous persecutors from St. Paul himself to the Nazi death-camp guards who were awed by the martyrdom of St. Maximilian Kolbe have been converted, often by witnessing the faith and Christ-like serenity of their victims.  The ancient accounts don't tell us, but the governor Felix might well have been one of these. Whether or not he himself was moved in this way, we can be sure that many of the other pagan witnesses were.

    Finally, the example of St. Julia of Corsica has continued to inspire people through the centuries and is still with us to this day as a reminder that, although there there will always be defeats along the way, Christ wins in the end.  If we can put our faith in that, as Julia did, we can persevere. As St. Peter said: " Rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 13).

Pentecost Sunday: Christ's Message is For Everyone and Veni Sancte Spiritus

 Today is Pentecost, one of the great Feasts of the Church, in which we remember how Jesus sent the Holy Spirit upon his Disciples to guide them in their mission of Evangelization and in the governance of his Church.  In the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read that the Apostles, Mary and others were gathered in the Upper Room when there was a rush of mighty wind and tongues of flame.  Not only that, those gathered began speaking “in other tongues”.  The international crowd gathered in Jerusalem, on hearing them, was 

. . .  amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?  Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphyia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." (Acts 2:5-11)

Referring to this event, St. Gregory of Agrigentum said:

           

Therefore if somebody should say to one of us, “You have received the Holy Spirit, why do you not speak in tongues?” his reply should be, “I do indeed speak in the tongues of all men, because I belong to the body of Christ, that is, the Church, and she speaks all languages. What else did the presence of the Holy Spirit indicate at Pentecost, except that God’s Church was to speak in the language of every people?”

The Church speaks to everyone because Christ is for everyone, and his language is universal.  Today we have ways of reaching people all over the globe that St. Gregory Agrigentum could not have imagined back in the 6th century, but it's the same Gospel, the same proclamation that the Apostles made 2,000 years ago.