Call on the Holy Spirit to heal your family

Is your family life and relationships like the discord of Babel?

Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon is encouraging families to call on the Holy Spirit for healing and unity.

“If there is a cacophony of sound, with a misunderstanding between the generations, between parents—the Holy Spirit is your protagonist in the family,” he said during his homily on Saturday, June 7, at the Pentecost Mass for Families at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Port of Spain.

The Mass was attended by families from across the Archdiocese and was organised by the Archdiocesan Family Life Commission.

Archbishop Gordon said the Tower of Babel (First Reading: Genesis 11:1-9) was the result of pride coming into the human family. When this happens, there is discord as people vie for dominance.

“And when pride steps in and pride takes over, the second thing that happens is communication gets distorted,” he said. Archbishop Gordon illustrated this by pointing to couples who once loved each other and planned their lives together but suddenly find themselves unable to understand each other.

“When pride steps in, we only hear what we want, and we can’t hear what the other is saying. And when this starts happening, what happens in the family is miscommunication and what we have now is the dialogue of the deaf,” he said.

Archbishop Gordon said both husband and wife should mutually seek the will of God in times of disagreement and come to humility, docility, seeing the will of God.

He continued, “I am willing to hear, to listen to you because you have something that I am not understanding, and I have something that you are not understanding. So that in the mutual exchange between the husband and the wife, the will of the Lord becomes more and more clear in the family.”

The Archbishop also spoke about the communication gap between parents and children, noting that young people today have access to vast amounts of knowledge. This, he said, has created a challenge: “a kind of seclusion behind the screen and lacking development”.

He called families, as the domestic Church, to mirror the “big Church” in sacrifice, in doing the will of God and in forgiveness.

Archbishop Gordon reminded the congregation that it is the Holy Spirit, received at Baptism and Confirmation, who can undo the confusion of Babel. “The gift of the Holy Spirit is not to be tucked away,” he said. “The gift of the Holy Spirit is given to you and me to actively be part of our life, every single day. The spirit is given to teach us to be more like Jesus, the Spirit is given to transform us to be another Christ.”

“If there is Babel in the family,” he continued, “then the Holy Spirit is the champion to help families attain communion.”

The Archbishop emphasised that Christianity is not a willpower religion, where people pull themselves up by their own strength. Rather, it is an empowering religion, where power comes “from on high”.

He then instructed families to close their eyes, reflect on what is going on in their families and “beg God’s Holy Spirit to do only what God’s Holy Spirit can do!” The observance of Pentecost, he reminded them, marks the “birthday” of the Church. He said, “the day God brought into being this beautiful Church that He founded on His cross and gave to us the fruit of His Holy Spirit.” —LPG