BISHOP’S MESSAGE The Eucharist
The Word became flesh By Bishop Michael Mulvey South Texas Catholic
T
he Word became flesh. This central mystery of our faith is proclaimed in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel. It is also the great mystery we celebrate each Christmas. God became man. God came to us in human flesh. The Word is the person of Jesus Christ. To know the Word is to know God. It is by encountering the word that we know the person of Jesus. The Holy Spirit has been given to the entire Church and to each person through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. Jesus told us in the Gospel of John, chapter 14, that the Spirit will teach us and remind us of all that He said. According to the Rite of Confirmation, He is the light that guides us – our helper and guide. What does all this mean to us in our daily lives? The truths of our faith are true because they can be lived or impact our daily lives. God is close to us, is present to us, lives in us through His word. We encounter Jesus in so many ways: He is present in the eucharist; he lives within us, and in those, we meet “whatever you do to the least you have done to me” (Mt 25:40), and He lives in His word. We are not people of “the Book.” We are people of the living Word. According to the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 4, a word that is alive and active can cut through any falsehood, or any error in our life. Our tradition is filled with beautiful examples of the saints who nurtured their faith through the study of the scriptures, prayer and meditation on the Word of God. They gathered treasures in their hearts that in turn overflowed in every aspect of their life. Their lives were transformed. They experienced what St. Paul wrote, “yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). It is not I who lives but Christ who lives in me. I, too, try to direct my life on the Gospel of Jesus. I do so by putting into practice one phrase of the Gospel for a month. For me, this practice started around 1977. I would like to share with you one of my earliest experiences of living the Word of God.
I was preparing a presentation in my parish on how to live the Gospel. The phrase I wanted to focus on was having loved his own, “he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). In my final preparations for the parish gathering, I was in the church. A lady came by and simply asked for the last Sunday’s bulletin. I indicated where she could find it pointing to the church entrances, the sacristy, etc. She went and searched for a bulletin but could not find one. I was very busy at that time but looking up, I saw a banner with the phrase “Having loved his own, he loved them to the end,” this motivated and moved me to assist the lady further. I interrupted my activities and went to help her search for the bulletin in other places, but we were not able to find one. The lady seemed satisfied that no bulletin could be found. As she began to leave, I took another glance at a banner – “Having loved His own, He loved them to the end,” and I realized that I was failing to live the words of the Gospel completely because I knew there was a bulletin in the parish office. Inside me, I felt that until she has a bulletin in her hand, I had not loved the way Jesus loves me. I called the lady back. We went together to the office and retrieved a bulletin, for which she was very grateful. I have meditated on that moment many times in my life as a priest and now as a bishop. I reflect on how I must live “He loved them to the end” in simple moments, but also in very demanding situations in my ministry as a bishop. Those words of Jesus have been branded in my soul. I am grateful to God for allowing me to encounter Him on a deeper level in His word — especially in the Gospel.
M AY T H E Y A L L B E O N E
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SUMMER 2021
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