So busy was I with other pastoral issues that I neglected to bring to your attention that last Sunday was the Sunday of the Word of God. This was instituted by Pope Francis back in 2019 to mark the 1600th anniversary of the death of St Jerome, the great biblical translator and interpreter, who said once, famously, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Jesus Christ”. It is celebrated every year on the Third Sunday of the Year which was last week. My apologies for not bringing it to your attention then, but, however, as luck or God’s will would have it, the readings for this Sunday also reflect, in different ways, the theme of the word of God.
Pope Francis wants to make clear how important it is, in the daily life of the church and our communities, to refer to God’s word, which is not confined to a book, but which remains ever alive. The theme of this year’s Sunday of the Word of God is Christ’s exhortation to his disciples: “Remain in my word” (John 8:31). In his homily for last Sunday, the pope called Catholics to spend more time with the saving power of God’s word as society and social media amplify the violence of words. He spoke of the immense power that the word of God can unleash in people’s lives and referenced saints like St Anthony, St Terese of Lisieux and St Francis of Assisi, who all had their lives changed by hearing or reading passages from the Bible. Pope Francis said the same thing can happen for us, but we need to stop being deaf to God’s word and start spending time in prayer with the Sacred Scriptures. Do you see, brothers and sisters, how this is echoed in our responsorial psalm today, which pleads with us with great urgency: “O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts!”
Our world, the pope also said, is drowning in words, yet is at the same time, thirsting for the very word it so often ignores.We are called to make room for the word of God in our lives, so we can share with the world this word which, amid so many noisy and violent words, is gentle, makes no loud noise, brings salvation and enters our hearts, expanding and transforming them. It helps prevent us falling into the trap of self-absorption, of concentrating on our own thoughts and problems rather than on Christ and his word.
The pope finished his teaching with some very direct and challenging questions. Amid so many books, magazines, televisions and telephones in our room, where is the Bible? Is the Gospel in easy reach? Do I read it daily in order to be faithful to my path in life? Do I carry this word with me when I leave my house: say, on my iPhone or in a small pocket size edition. If Christ is dearer to me than anything else, Pope Francis concludes, how can I leave him at home, and not bring his word with me?
Indeed. I was really challenged by that last question, I can tell you, brothers and sisters, how about you?
You know that, in our first reading today, Moses promises the people of Israel, even though he will soon die, that God will not leave them without his word. He will raise up for them a “Prophet like” Moses, to whom they are warned to pay heed. In fact, Moses isn’t so much referring to another human prophet, but rather to the continuance of God’s prophetic voice in their midst. So, God’s word, he goes on to say later on, will always be “very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (Deut 30: 14). There will always be someone to speak God’s word in authority and power among God’s people. Since we also, like Israel, are God’s people, we can apply this promise to ourselves. The Church, during Mass each week, gives us God’s word in the readings which are proclaimed to us each time we attend. As I said earlier, our psalm today urges us, as we hear this word, not to harden our hearts against it. That also means we are not to switch off, let our mind wander, read the bulletin or any of the other ways in which we can block the word of God coming to us, entering our minds and hearts and transforming us into true disciples of Christ and sons and daughters of his heavenly Father. If today we listen to God’s voice, and harden not our hearts, we can become, missionaries, God’s messengers and witnesses to a world, as I quoted earlier from Pope Francis, “a world, drowning in words, yet thirsting for the very word it so often ignores.”
I am not a “ prophet like Moses”, and you don’t have to pay attention to me, if you think I am way off the mark here, but I prophesy that there will come a time, in most of our lifetimes, when God’s power will be unleashed in a revival of God-consciousness, such that people will be cut to the heart by an awareness of their sin, will finally see through the madness of so much woke-ism, and want to return to God and to the church, and to their faith. At that time, they will be seeking you and me out, recognizing that we are believers, and they will ask us, as the people hearing St Peter’s words on Pentecost Sunday and experiencing the power of God’s Holy Spirit, asked: “Brethren, what should we do?” (Acts 2: 37) How do we get back to God, whom we have ignored for so long? Will you and I, brothers and sisters, be able to answer them, guide them, lead them back to God, to the church, to their faith? Yes, we will, but only if we have allowed the word of Christ to dwell in us richly, in the words of Colossians 3:16, and have remained in God’s word, according to John 8:31 and, finally, “have not hardened our hearts against it.”
Let us pray…
“Blessed are you, Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth, for your Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.
We praise and thank you for your Word recorded in the Bible and faithfully proclaimed in the assembly of your holy people. May our hearts and minds be always open to welcome your life-changing Word. May your Word nourish our faith, enliven our hope and strengthen us in the bond of love. May we carry your Word with us each day, as we seek to serve you in our brothers and sisters.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”