Why does the believer not receive the gift of speaking in the tongues of many nations when he is baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit?

The answer

St. Augustine believes that the Holy Spirit had come upon many individuals before Jesus was glorified by His resurrection; such as Simeon the Elder, Anna the Prophetess, and St. Mary at the divine incarnation. But after the resurrection, on the feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the whole Church rather than individuals, and they spoke with the various tongues of the nations. Why, then, does a believer today not receive the gift of speaking in tongues when he is baptized and receives the Holy Spirit? St. Augustine answers this question by pointing out that as the Church spread throughout the world, people who natively spoke all the languages of the world became Christians. So, each Christian, as a member of the universal Church, can consider himself to speak all the languages of the nations, since whatever his brethren utter is as though he himself utters it, being a member of the one Body.⁸⁰⁸

Elsewhere, St. Augustine says that after His resurrection, the Lord Christ granted us the Holy Spirit through whom we receive the Church and its unity and love. Thus, we are granted to rise with her, our hearts fleeing this world to live with Him in heaven: “… we too receive the Holy Spirit if we love the Church, if we are joined together by charity … For here we are born and die: let us not love this world; let us migrate hence by love; by love let us dwell above, by that love by which we love God. In this sojourn of our life let us meditate on nothing else, but that here we shall not always be, and that by good living we shall prepare a place for ourselves there, whence we shall never migrate.”⁸⁰⁹

St. Ambrose says, “So, then, the Holy Spirit is the River, and the abundant River, which according to the Hebrews flowed from Jesus in the lands, as we have received it prophesied by the mouth of Isaiah (Isa. 66:12). This is the great River which flows always and never fails. And not only a river, but also one of copious stream and overflowing greatness, as also David said: ‘The stream of the river makes glad the city of God’ (Ps. 46:4). For neither is that city, the heavenly Jerusalem, watered by the channel of any earthly river, but that Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Fount of Life, by a short draught of Whom we are satiated, seems to flow more abundantly among those celestial Thrones, Dominions and Powers, Angels and Archangels, rushing in the full course of the seven virtues of the Spirit.”⁸¹⁰

Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty