This year, Pope Francis has inaugurated a new focus for this third Sunday of Ordinary Time. He has decreed that the third Sunday of Ordinary Time is especially to be centered on the Word of God. In his Apostolic Letter that created this celebration, Pope Francis writes, “without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible. Hence, Saint Jerome could rightly claim: ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’”
For Catholics, especially of a particular age, the Scriptures may be a bit foreign. Indeed, some of you have even told me that, while growing up, you were discouraged by priests, nuns, and others, from reading the Word of God. While we do have some active Bible study groups here, some of you may be thinking: what good would it do me to read the Bible more? I’ve gotten along without it just fine for this long!
The Word of God, as divinely revealed in Sacred Scripture, and faithfully communicated and interpreted through the teaching of the Church, is meant to be the guide for our life. In the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, entitled Dei Verbum, of the Second Vatican Council, the Church teaches:
both [sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture], flowing from the same divine wellspring…merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve the word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. […] Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
When we sang, with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” what we were saying is that the Lord illuminates the path that I am to take towards heaven. The Word of God gives us a great light, whereas without it we walk in darkness. It brings us “abundant joy and great rejoicing.” It gives us freedom from the yoke of sin that burdens us.
The Word of God is also meant to bring about the unity of Jesus’ followers, and all those who are created in the image and likeness of God. Humanity tends towards disunity; it is, we might say, the communal law of entropy. Even in St. Paul’s time, he writes that divisions are creeping in among the Christians of Corinth: “each of you is saying, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” When we are left to our own machinations, we tend to divide. The Word of God, given to us through Sacred Scripture and faithfully interpreted by the teaching office of the Church, holds together what Satan wants to sift apart.
Lastly, as we hear from our Gospel today, the Word of God calls us on to mission. Jesus, the eternal Word (in Greek: Logos) of God the Father, calls the first apostles, Simon and Andrew, and also James and John, and invites them to follow Him, so that He might make them “fishers of men.” It’s not as if the Word of God is meant to stay stagnant in our lives. It is meant to change us, and to urge us on to making other disciples. If our engagement with the Word of God doesn’t draw us to make other disciples, then we’re not getting all that God wants to share with us through His Word.
Now, I know, those are a lot of high-level ideals. But does the Word of God make a difference in my real life? It can, if we are open to its effects. In the first way, it helps us to make decisions on how we spend our time and money, helps us to know how to interact with others, and assists us in making both big life decisions and the smaller daily decisions by shining the light of Christ on the path we are seeking to travel, to see if it’s a good path or a dangerous path.
In the second case, there are a lot of people who claim to follow Jesus, but the Word of God can help us evaluate whether their encouragements of what to believe and how to live are truly from God and live up to His wisdom, as expressed in Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church. Both are necessary, as we see Christian communities who were historically founded on the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, now allowing and sometimes even promoting activities which are in direct contradiction to the Sacred Scripture. We avoid division by staying faithful to the Word of God as expressed in the Bible and faithfully interpreted by the apostles and their successors, the bishops, teaching in union with the Pope.
In the third case, the more that we hear the Good News expressed in the Word of God–that God loves us, God has a plan for us, God forgives us, God has saved and is saving us–the more we want others to hear that news. Bible studies cannot be ends in themselves, but should push us to share with our family and friends and neighbors that Good News, and how following God can change our lives for the better.
Today God reminds us that His Word is light, unity, and mission. May our hearing of the Word of God, and our daily engagement with it, bring that light, unity, and mission to our lives, that we may share that light, unity, and mission with those that we encounter each day.