The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel offers an explanation for the world--for the multiplicity of its languages, the reason for the variety of peoples and nations, and also the origins and the name of a particular place---in this case, Babylon. The authors of this story use a dramatic narrative to account for all of these things. Behind the story, however, is a divinely inspired moral tale that is meant, primarily, not to inform, but to instruct.

The divisions within our world, be it linguistic, ethnic, racial, or otherwise, were felt to be an expression of a great tragedy the human race experienced somewhere at the beginning of time. At the time of creation, the world was thought to have been a place of harmony, peace, and unity, symbolized by the Garden of Eden. The catastrophe that characterizes our world today was due to the moral failure on the part of our ancestors---namely, their pride, arrogance, and ambition to gain the world over the limits assigned to the human race.

Today, Jesus cautions us with a question. "What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose your soul?" We are called by our baptism to be agents of reconciliation, healing divisions of every kind and working toward the restoration of dignity among all peoples. We carry our duties with dignity to witness the message of universal hope to others in their own tongue.