So that we may understand

Sacred Scripture is the foundation of Christian life and the Christian Credo. Scripture is the first and primary source from which Christian faith and experience flow. In Scripture, we find the revelations of God and his plan of salvation for man and all men of good will, through the history of the people of the Old Testament, especially in the mission of the prophets, and lastly and perfectly, (Cf. Heb 1:1) through Jesus of Nazareth—his deeds and his words.

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)