Vatican City – This morning, in the Paul VI Hall, Fr. Roberto Pasolini OFM Cap, Preacher of the Pontifical Household, offered the Roman Curia and the Holy Father the second Advent 2025 meditation, on the theme: “Rebuilding the Lord’s house. A Church without oppositions.” A reflection that brought into focus the ecclesial responsibility to welcome grace not only as individuals, but as a body, avoiding the shortcuts of uniformity and the polarizations that render discernment sterile.
A Church as a “building” to be built together
After the first meditation devoted to vigilance in awaiting the Parousia, Pasolini shifted the emphasis to the ecclesial “we”: Baptism, he recalled, makes believers «collaborators of God» called to build his «building» which is the Church, a “sign and instrument” of unity according to Lumen gentium. The underlying question is clear: what unity should we bear witness to today, and how can we make it credible in the world.
Babel: unity sought as uniformity
To respond, the Preacher retraced the account of the tower of Babel: a project born of the fear of dispersion and presented as a “reasonable” operation, but in reality concealing a logic of control. The key phrase of the biblical text, taken up in the meditation, is: «Come… let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered». Here unity does not arise from the composition of differences, but from homogenization: identical “bricks” in place of irregular stones, quick consensus instead of real confrontation. Pasolini then brought the temptation of homogenization into the present: yesterday totalitarianisms, today subtler dynamics - from information bubbles to standardized language - even reaching the Church when it confuses the unity of faith with the uniformity of expressions and sensibilities.
“Confusion” as therapy: God saves difference
The theological point is decisive: God does not “punish” Babel out of jealousy, but intervenes to prevent a process of death. The text places on the Lord’s lips words that are harsh and at the same time medicinal: «Let us go down, then, and confuse their language». Confusion thus becomes a protection, because it prevents a single voice from imposing itself as an absolute and restores to humanity the possibility of not all being the same. In the background,Pentecost emerges as a “mirror” account: not one single language for all, but a communion in which each person understands “in his or her own language”. Difference safeguarded, not abolished.
The temple to be rebuilt: joy and tears in the same song
The meditation then turns to the history of Israel and the rebuilding after the exile: Nehemiah, Ezra, the walls and the temple. The detail Pasolini highlights is the concrete and personal toil (“each one in front of his own house”) and the vigilance of the builders: «with one hand they worked and with the other they held their weapon». The rebuilding of God’s house, in short, is never naïve: it entails inner conflict, spiritual resistance, perseverance. The narrative climax is the scene of the foundations of the new temple: some exult, others weep. Scripture, the Capuchin religious explains, records a startling fact: «It was not possible to distinguish… joy… from… weeping». It is the image of a Church that does not start over from zero, but carries memories, wounds, nostalgia, and hope within the same worksite.
Reform: neither refuge conservatism nor uncritical innovation
From here Pasolini draws criteria for ecclesial renewal: never mistake communion for uniformity; accept spiritual combat; learn to “suffer” together without silencing the other’s voice. As a spiritual icon he recalls Francis of Assisi and the word that set him on his way: «Go, repair my house»; at first stones and walls, but soon the awareness that the true temple to be healed is the Church itself. The explicit reference to Vatican II is equally direct: the pilgrim Church is called to a «continual reform», understood not as fashion but as greater fidelity to her vocation.
fr.L.C.
Silere non possum