Drawing on Bernardino Montejano:
PENTECOST
Man is an heir, wrote Charles Maurras. And we are all
heirs to inheritances that are sometimes very unequal in the
cultural, spiritual and material goods received.
We belong to a generation with a very special debt
to the Cursos de Cultura Católica, in their original version, a movement
of laypeople who, in the words of one of them, Ignacio Anzoátegui, “reconciled us
with dignity, taught us that the Catholic had no reason
to look like a drug addict of Virtue, like a nun
psychoanalyzed by any Amado Nervo” (“Los C.C.C. y nosotros”
Universitas
, Buenos Aires, 1975, n°38, p. 15).
The debt contracted with men such as Tomás Darío Casares,
Samuel Wenceslao Medrano, Miguel Ángel Echeverriray, Rafael Jijena
Sánchez and so many others, generates an unpayable debt.
One of the others was Santiago de Estrada and his book, “SantosMisterios”,
(Grupo de Editoriales Católicas, Buenos Aires, 1945), inspired
this note.
There, Babel or Babylonia is contrasted with Pentecost. And he writes
that “while Babel is synonymous with confusion of tongues and dispersion
of peoples, Pentecost recalls the outpouring of Charity that unites
men in the bosom of the Most Holy Trinity, making them children of
the same Father, brothers in the Son, in the fullness of Love”.
What human pride could not achieve, “was freely
granted to the humble as an addition to the Redemption” and “it was
precisely on the Day of Pentecost that the
miracle was fulfilled: the Holy Spirit descended in the form of tongues of fire
and before the astonishment of the crowd gathered in front of the
Cenacle, the Lord’s Apostles made themselves understood despite
the diversity of the nations of their improvised audience and from there
the Lord scattered them to announce the Good News and invite all
men to join the Holy City” (pp. 26/27).
We have and make use of a book entitled “De María a laTrinidad”,
Meditation on the mysteries of the rosary, written by Fr. Luis
María de Blignieres, founder of the Fraternidad San Vicente
Ferrer, of Dominican spirituality, established in
Chémeré-le-Roi,Mayenne, France. In it, referring to the third glorious mystery,
which he titles “The mission of the Holy Spirit”, he writes that “at the close of
the harvest, the Spirit of love comes to complete the work of the Son”.
“The Spirit, who blows where He wills, purifies the miasmas of
unbelief, and leads the world in the great Trinitarian breathing. Fire
is the charity He pours into hearts, the burning
love of the Savior’s soul”.
“In the spirit of the apostles embraced by a
formidable love, fear has disappeared, a great light has risen.
The deeds and words of the Savior are taken in their profound
reach, the Old Testament is illuminated by the mystery of Christ
dead and risen”.
St. Bonaventure, the “Seraphic Doctor”, wrote a book “The
Gifts of the Holy Spirit”, (Cursos de Cultura Católica, Buenos Aires,
1943). In it he teaches us about the seven gifts: “the gift of fear that
destroys pride and instills the virtue of voluntary poverty; the gift of
piety that destroys envy and instills meekness; the gift of
knowledge that destroys anger and instills tranquility of soul; the gift of
fortitude that destroys sloth and instills hunger and thirst for
justice; the gift of counsel that destroys avarice and instills
mercy; the gift of understanding that destroys gluttony and instills
purity of heart and the gift of wisdom, that destroys lust and instills
peace” (pp. 52/53).
In our days we live under the siege of digital Babel or in
the midst of a new Babel marked by the ambiguous, the equivocal, the
tangled, the obscure, which we can only confront with a renewed
Pentecost, for which we pray the
VENI CREATOR:
“Come, Creator, loving Spirit
come and visit the soul that cries out to you
and with your sovereign grace inflame
the breasts you created, O mighty one.
You who are called faithful advocate,
gift of the Most High, mighty source
of eternal life, fervent charity,
spiritual unction, sacred fire.
You infuse the soul with seven gifts,
faithful promise of the sovereign Father,
you are the finger of His right hand,
you dictate to us words and reasons”
Buenos Aires, May 24, 2026.
Bernardino Montejano