Today, we hear the last readings in our two week cycle of readings from Genesis in daily Mass. Like the story of the Garden of Eden, today’s story is a tale of humanity’s pride and arrogance. The people learn to make bricks; that skill feeds a desire to construct a tower that will reach into the heavens. God sees the pride and folly of the people, which does not please him. Fearing further rebellion from his people, God divides them by making them speak languages incomprehensible by the others. The people are scattered over the face of the earth, so the building of their city and their tower is abandoned.
Arrogance and pride are sins that are still common today. We can think that we are in control of our lives and our destinies, but then things in life happen that show that we are not in control. We see natural disasters like hurricanes or tsunamis or tornados. We see tragedies like the 9/11 attack in New York or the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Those events help remind us of the fragility of our existence here on earth. As God scattered the people with different languages in the Tower of Babel, he united people being able to understand their different languages at Pentecost. With God and through our Lord, Jesus Christ, there is unity and hope.
I want to mention a devout Catholic who died on this day back in 1564: Michelangelo. He is remembered as being the artist who created the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and as being the sculptor of famous statues such as David and the Pieta, He is also the architect of the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, to which he devoted three decades of his life. We saw architecture be the subject of human folly in the tower of Babel in our reading from Genesis. In the architecture of Michelangelo, we see it striving to bring glory to God.
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