I was humbled to be able to preach today. Deacon Bill Stankevitz and I switched weekends this month , and at the time, I didn’t realize the significance of today’s date. I am enamored with the written word. Poetry and prose make my heart leap with joy. No written word can compare to the Scriptures. I am fascinated with the Bible, and in 2019, Pope Francis declared that the third Sunday in Ordinary Time was to be devoted to the celebration, study, and devotion of the Word of God. That’s why our first reading is so appropriate. We find Ezra reading the book of the Law to the people.
Why is this significant? The people had just been returned to their homeland after being held in captivity by the Persians for a long time. So here they were in the temple and being read the book of the Law that they had been unable to hear all this time in Persia. What is their response? They weep. They weep because they haven’t kept the Law. They weep in love for God and recognition of their failures. Maybe they even weep because they hear the scriptures in their native tongue, God speaking to them in a way they can understand and connect with Him.
Ezra tells them not to weep and be sad, but rather celebrate and have a feast! For today is Holy to our God. Is that our response to the idea of reading sacred scripture? Do we find joy in it or sadness? Are we moved to want to understand the Bible more?
All too often, we tend to look at Bible studies as simply dissecting another book. It’s good to know the context and understand the writers’ culture and background. But Scripture isn’t a book to just be torn apart with analysis and mental acumen. It’s a love letter to be cherished. It’s the written down experience of a people in close contact with God, inspired by His Spirit to convey to us how much He loves each of us. It is something to be prayed with and placed in our hearts.
There is an exciting thing about the words we use as a church to describe the proclamation of the word. When the lector is up here, we could say it two ways in Latin. We could say the word is Scriptum, like the word we use for script or font. It means fixed, etched in stone., written down, unchangeable.
But the word the Church uses is verbum. Like the English word Verb, an action, it has movement. It has the connotation of wings. As if the word being proclaimed isn’t just spoken but takes flight and moves with the power of the Holy Spirit from the lector’s mouth to our ears. It reminds us of the Holy Spirit described as a dove, as the moving wind, as the action of God in the universe.
Because here is the key to the scriptures, the key to understanding how we as Catholics should be studying the Bible. It’s not dead. It’s not a reference book that sits on the shelf till we need a quote. And even though I encourage people to memorize scripture, it’s not simply something to commit to memory to pull it out word for word when we need it. Instead, the Word of God is Jesus Christ. We read, study, and pray the Scriptures to know Jesus Himself. The scriptures point to the living Jesus, the verbum of God, the action and love of God moving through the Holy Spirit that makes the Sacraments of the Church possible. It is this same Jesus who comes to us in the Eucharist and who forgives us in confession.
The crux of the matter is this: It’s not enough to just read the word; we need to come to know the author. To listen to God’s voice, alive and active, speaking to us right here and right now in the words of the Sacred Scriptures.
Words He would have written down, even if only to reach a single one of us because this is written to you, Individually and intentionally. It speaks to each of us in our hearts as only we can hear it because God is enamored with you. That’s why He makes salvation available to us through the Church. That we might spend eternity with Him in Heaven, don’t wait till then to get to know Him; listen to His voice, start now. Read, study, pray. Not just today on the Sunday of the Word of God, but every day for the rest of your life.
Because, as St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture, is ignorance of Christ.” A person in love wants to know everything they can about the one they love. So fall in love with Jesus, dive into the love letter He inspired, a letter that took over a thousand years to write. Then run to Him in the Sacraments, kneel before Him in Confession, and gaze upon and receive Him in the Holy Eucharist… because Jesus is alive and present, and He wants to be an active part of our everyday life.
A reflection on the readings for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: January 23rd, 2022