A Letter From Our Pastor: Understanding God’s Word

My dear sisters and brothers ,

Only a few short weeks ago we concluded our Christmas season, a time of great rejoicing and celebration. We now find ourselves in Ordinary Time journeying through the Gospel of Luke. This is one of those rare years when Ash Wednesday is in March, so we have a good number of Ordinary Sundays wearing green, a symbol of new life and growth.

Unlike the Gospel of Luke, which gives us a good deal of our Christmas story, the Gospel of John begins with these words that we heard on Christmas Day: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” God’s Word is effective. What God says is. For John, the Word was Jesus.

There are basically four main parts in the celebration of Mass: Introductory Rites; Liturgy of the Word; Liturgy of the Eucharist; and the Concluding Rites. I want to focus on the second part, the Liturgy of the Word. Its main parts are the first reading (often from the Old Testament), a responsorial Psalm, a second reading (often from the letters of St. Paul or the other letters in the New Testament), the Gospel and a homily (reflection on the readings).

We draw on sacred Scripture from the Bible for our readings. As Catholics, we do not consider that these readings are simply about God, or about the Church, or about our faith, or history lesson, or nice story from long ago. We consider them to be God speaking directly to us. Thus, we conclude, “the Word of the Lord.” This means that it is God’s Word, not something we made up, that sounds nice or tickles our ears.

If we believe that God is speaking directly to us, our attentiveness to what is proclaimed is extremely important. We need to ask ourselves, “Am I listening? Do I hear? What do I hear? How should I respond?”

As Catholics, the Word of God is alive and living. God is speaking to us as a community and God asks us to be faithful to His Word. The Holy Spirit directs the Church to help us understand the meaning of the word. If we pay attention and truly listen, God can nourish our spirit, and Christ can be more real and present to us as the Word. The homily, the responsorial Psalm, the profession of faith and the intercessions develop the word further and complete it. The profession of faith is our acceptance of God’s Word. The question for us is how do we respond to the Word? Does it change our lives? Does it bring us to the conversion necessary to live lives of stewardship and service? It is not easy, at least not for me. Being able to listen, to hear, and then to act requires time, practice, commitment and desire to fulfill what God is asking and speaking into our hearts.

It is my prayer that each of us will open our hearts and our minds to hear the Word of God so that we can bring it to life in our own lives and in the lives of others.

In Christ, through the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio, I love you.

Fr. Jim

Fr. Jim