The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words. While the people were migrating in the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.
They said to one another, "Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire." They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth."
The LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. Then the LORD said: ""If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they have started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do. Let us then go down there and confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says.""
Thus the LORD scattered them from there all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world. It was from that place that he scattered them all over the earth.
REFLECTION
"The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words."
This is a very interesting first reading. It is telling us what happened after the flood occurred. The earth was repopulated. People spoke the same language, the same words. And then, when they were so sure of themselves, their language became confused and they could not communicate with each other.
Aren't we at the same point in time as the people from the story of Babel? We might use a word such as woman, but its meaning, which used to be one thing, now is used to mean many other things. This perception of reality does not conform with what what a woman truly is. You might say we should not worry about this anymore, that the current government administration has affirmed that there is only two genders, male and female, and dropped the other hundred or so from being legally recognized. This could be just window dressing, since there are still many legal and private entities where people think they can create their own realities. And also this change might only be temporary, since the next administration could easily reverse whatever the current is doing in regards to "gender identity".
In any case, the point is that when we believe ourselves the creators of our own realities, we earnestly distort the truth to fit our own whims. Only God, who is the source of all creation, perfectly knows the fullness of the truth.
With so much information hitting us all the time, we need to stop and breathe, and think. The Truth is immovable, is permanent. The Truth is the person of Jesus. Ten days ago, Jesus ascended into Heaven, and now God is sending His Holy Spirit who, amongst many things will guide us to the truth: "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming."'(Jn 16:13)
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