The entire history of the people
of the Old Testament, especially the lives and proclamations of the
prophets, the lives of the early Christians and their communities, but
especially the very life of Jesus of Nazareth, became—through his
authenticity and consistency, through his authority, that is, through the
manifestation of the divine in the deeply human, (Cf. DV 2)—the space where
God reveals himself and his will for all mankind.
For centuries, the importance,
foundation, and centrality that Sacred Scripture must have in the life of the
Church, in general, and in the life of each Christian, in particular, were
neglected and forgotten. And, during twenty centuries, other voices,
other words, other documents, other announcements, other exhortations, other
notions of life became, perhaps, more important than the written Word of
God. Sometimes, they were in tune with the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, but many other times, these
have been bodies of teaching and/or doctrinal concepts that have
contradicted how God manifests and communicates in the Bible.
That is why—six decades ago—the
meeting of all Catholic bishops of the world at the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council invited all believers in Christ to return—beyond the doctrinal
tangle woven for twenty centuries—to the source of our Christian Credo,
i.e., God's revelations contained in Sacred Scripture, especially to
what the God of the Old Testament and our Creator
and Father reveals, through the life of Jesus of
Nazareth, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, also, the most recent
popes and most important doctrinal documents of the Church have focused on
providing the central place that Sacred Scripture deserves in the life of
Christianity, seeking to raise awareness of the identity, the life, and the
work of each disciple of Christ, in each community of faith.
Thus, in the Apostolic Letter
issued “Motu proprio,” entitled APERUIT ILLIS and given in Rome on September
30, 2019, Pope Francis institutes the THIRD SUNDAY of ORDINARY TIME of the
Catholic Liturgy as THE SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD. This year, this day will
fall on January 26.
This new endeavor, this
renewed importance that the Church wants to give the centrality of
Scripture in the life of the Church and every believer, is recognized by
Francis himself in the aforementioned letter when he says: “It is now common for the Christian community to set
aside moments to reflect on the great importance of the word of God for
everyday living. The various local Churches have undertaken a wealth of
initiatives to make the sacred Scripture more accessible to believers, to
increase their gratitude for so great a gift, and to help them to strive daily
to embody and bear witness to its teachings.” (2)
The Pope wants
this celebration for the “study and dissemination” of the Word of
God to have—at the same time—an ecumenical character: “This Sunday
of the Word of God will thus be a fitting part of that time of the year
when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to
pray for Christian unity.”(3) May this be the moment to highlight and
recognize the importance of the Word of God in worship in our sister
Christian churches.
We congratulate and applaud Pope
Francis’ initiative, which, in line with similar provisions of his
predecessors, is encouraging our faith and bringing us closer to the primary
source from which our faith, our hope, and our love flow: the Holy Bible.
“Ignorance
of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Commentary on the Book of Isaiah,
Prologue: PL 24,17B) - Quoted by Francis in the aforementioned
Letter). We applaud, again, this new endeavor because, in the
Catholic Church, we regain the centrality of the Word of God in
our Christian life, but this calls for education on the part of
us all: the agents of evangelization and its recipients.
Theological education (exegetical and hermeneutical) is urgently needed so that
we learn to read the origins of our faith in biblical texts with the same
theological intentions—although from different cultural perspectives—with which
they were written. We must synchronize the
confessions of our faith with the confessions of faith of the first
Christians. We must shape our lives to the life of Christ. We
must, in short, give life to the Word of God in our daily lives.
Let us take
advantage of this new Catholic ardor for the Word of God. Let us participate in
the spaces of study of Sacred Scripture that are offered to us, so that
our faith becomes more intelligent, more reasoned, more reasonable and,
therefore, more credible. As the apostle Peter urges and
encourages us: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone
who asks you for a reason for your hope.” (1 Pet 3:15)
