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Word of God Sunday

Sixth Year

You may recall that Pope Francis in an Apostolic Letter, “Aperuit Illis,” instituted the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time to be the Sunday of the Word of God. He wrote: “May the Sunday of the Word of God help his people grow in religious and intimate familiarity with the sacred Scriptures.” He stressed how essential it is for Catholics to familiarize themselves with Christ’s written word, highlighting: “a day devoted to the Bible should not be seen as a yearly event but rather a year-long event.”

Within the document, he underscores how we “urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the Risen Lord, who continues to speak his word and to break bread in the community of believers. For this reason,” he says, “we need to develop a closer relationship with sacred Scripture; otherwise, our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut, struck as we are by so many forms of blindness.” The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers, and Sacred Scripture, he states, “is essential” to our identity as Christians. 

“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. This is more than a temporal coincidence: the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity.” The Holy Father has asked parish communities to find their own ways to mark this Sunday with a certain solemnity. Once more, we will enshrine at the foot of the sanctuary a Book of the Gospels formatted from the Saint John’s Bible, the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by the Benedictine Abbey since the invention of the printing press over 500 years ago. From now until Palm Sunday, it will be opened to the passage of the day. We are reminded that at every celebration not only are we nourished by the Eucharist, but also by God’s Word.

Fr. Terry

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