During this Octave for Christian Unity, Friar Enrique Eguiarte reminds us that unity is not “manufactured”: it is received as a gift of the Spirit, a mirror of Trinitarian communion.
The Holy Spirit and unity: from Babel to Pentecost, with Saint Augustine
It is necessary to pray for unity, asking God through the Spirit to grant unity to his Church. Saint Augustine highlights the fact that the pride of human beings at the time of building the Tower of Babel led to the division of peoples and languages (Gn 11:1-9). This moment is contrasted and healed by Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13), where the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the personified love of God, unites languages and peoples, so that above national or cultural differences, unity may reign as a fruit of charity.
The Most Holy Trinity lives in perfect unity and becomes the model for all human communities, which must overcome their own limitations and strive every day to build unity in the community and in the Church, overcoming their own differences by contemplating the example of the Trinity. On the other hand, for Saint Augustine, unity within the Church, in addition to being a gift, is a dynamic reality in a double sense. In the first place, because it is something that must be built every day, and on the other hand, it is a reality that orients the community of believers towards the world and towards God. The Church must live unity as an internal and at the same time external challenge. To live in unity and be a factor of unity in the world and among men. In a world divided by wars and enmities, the Church lives the challenge of building unity, within itself and in the world in which it finds itself.
