SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD
In his Apostolic Letter of 30 September 2019, Pope Francis established that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time to be the Sunday of the Word of God. It is a day to be devoted to the celebration, study, and spreading of the Word of God.
Each and every Sunday we listen to the word of God in the Scripture Readings at Mass and we hear the Gospel reading explained to us by the priest or deacon. Throughout the whole year we see the message of salvation placed before us in the readings from the sacred scripture texts as they tell us about the message of salvation from the Angel at the annunciation to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. From the temptation of Jesus in the dessert for 40 days during Lent to the Last Supper in the upper room and then to the Cross of good Friday and the resurrection from the tomb on Easter Sunday to Pentecost when the Church began with the Holy Spirit coming down on the Apostles.
All of these events are marked in and through the readings from scripture that we listen to week after week as they tell the story of salvation. We are called to listen as the reader, proclaims God’s Word. For in fact it is God who speaks to us when the Scriptures are read or studied. In our Gospel story this Sunday we hear about Jesus calling Andrew, Simon, Peter, James son of Zebedee and his brother John to follow him. As Jesus travelled around Galilee, he actively built a following. Biblical scholars speculate that the Galileans would network and form groups around social, economic, or religious issues. There was strength in numbers. This gospel is about the call of Jesus to the first apostles to be his followers. This gospel story is not just an echo from the past it is very much for us today as it was yesterday as all the stories in the Scriptures are call to us to action. The Word of God, that we listen to each and every Sunday which is living and active, challenges us and calls us individually and all of us together to a response that moves beyond the liturgy itself and moves out into our daily lives.
And the word of God should lead us to engage fully in the task of making Christ known to the world by all that we do and say. So on this day when we celebrate the word of God in a special way let us listen more attentively to the message of the Scripture Readings and put it into our daily lives.
Fullerton T 