Tongues Untied
Gobsmacked! Flabbergasted! Thunderstruck! Words seem inadequate to describe the likely reaction of the apostles and Mary when they “began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” while praying in the Upper Room on Pentecost (Acts 2:4). Similarly, when devout Jews from many nations gathered in Jerusalem, “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 own native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites…yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God’” (see Acts 2:5-13).
These Scripture passages illustrate the catholicity of the universal Church, evident already on the first Pentecost as people from many nations were united in hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ in their own tongue. “What happened was that for the first time in their lives this motley mob was hearing the word of God in a way that struck straight home to their hearts and they could understand,” wrote Scripture scholar William Barclay. These Bible passages are also intended to remind us of a complete reversal of the tower of Babel, where God scattered the human family through the multiplication and confusion of languages (Genesis 11:1–9).
This Babel-like confusion regularly comes to mind when a few dozen members of my Redemptorist community gather on weekdays to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every morning and evening. Despite multiple ribbon placeholders in the breviary, we’re seldom “on the same page”—literally and figuratively! We all speak the same language, of course, but at various speeds. In our communal recitation of the psalms, a few confreres are several words ahead of the rest, while others lag several words behind, creating a distracting echo effect.
In other words, we’re a community that’s Divine Office fluid!
(In our defense, about a third of the community members experience varying degrees of hearing loss—although admittedly, the hearing aid device is less likely to be found in the ear than in a remote repository with dentures and other appendages.)
Nevertheless, when our disjointed voices call too much attention to themselves, does our activity even qualify as prayer? Will our communal prayer still rise like incense before the Lord? Yes, thanks to the Holy Spirit! According to St. Paul, “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings” (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit takes my community’s “incohesive longings” to worship God in prayer and turns them into “inexpressible groanings” before the Lord. Gobsmacked! To the ears of God, we may even sound as harmonious as the Vienna Boys’ Choir!
Therefore, let us rejoice in the dynamism of the Holy Spirit! At times, if our prayers feel like a mere multiplication of words with little effect—or if we feel out of sync in a worshiping congregation—it’s good to recall the Spirit who dwells in us, prays in us, intercedes for us, and helps us pray as we ought. Likewise, when we do not know what to pray for or how to articulate our prayers into the right words “through Christ,” the Holy Spirit translates our heartfelt prayerful longings into an acceptable form and carries them—like a bird in flight—to God’s heart.
This doesn’t mean that we should only show up for prayer and rely on the Holy Spirit to do all the heavy lifting. Rather, it means that a concerted effort to pray as we can is more beneficial than mastery. What matters most is perseverance and faithfulness to prayer, even if we sometimes nod off, allow our minds to wander, or endure interior and exterior distractions.
When we occasionally experience an inability to pray, consider offering these words from Thomas Merton: “My Lord God, I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing….I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.”
Our genuine desire to please God will be offered up on our behalf by the Holy Spirit—the same elusive Spirit that also leads us on the right path, though we may know nothing about it!
