Did you know that this Sunday, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, is declared to be in the universal Church the Sunday of the Word of God? This was declared by Pope Francis in late 2019 so it still a new thing. In the Apostolic Letter instituting this Sunday he said it should be “devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God.” “Devoting a specific Sunday of the liturgical year to the word of God can enable the Church to experience anew how the risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world.”
What could you do to celebrate this Sunday of the Word of God? I’d think best to crack open your Bible and read it!
If you don’t have your own Bible, drop everything and get one now. Perhaps best of all, pray with scripture by doing Lectio Divina. If you don’t know what Lectio Divina is, look that up—it’s pretty easy yet powerful.
Another idea is to join a Bible study. I’m doing one at 7PM Tuesdays of February. It will be in the church (so room to social distance), and I hope also to try to livestream it so it will be on our Facebook page. I had previously titled it Bible Deep Cuts… but I think I’m going to “cut” that idea and save it for later. Instead, I’m going with “Setting the World on Fire: How Scripture applies to our world today.” I think the reason I’m doing this should be fairly obvious. Our world has kind of been on fire recently. Many people have been passionate about things going on like the pandemic and politics, and this has at times boiled over into tragic events like the riot at the Capitol. My goal is to step back and step into Scripture to re-ground ourselves so we don’t get swept up into the whirlwind, and we can respond with discernment and love as God is calling us to. I can’t promise all the answers, but I do believe Scripture will lead us and challenge us to better answers.
God is speaking to us through His Word! We need to hear it, to listen. As they say, God gave us two ears and one mouth, so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. There are a lot of loud voices in our world, but God speaks pretty softly. So let’s recommit to listening to God’s quiet Word. Only then will we truly have something to say.