On September 30 of last year, the memorial of St. Jerome, famous for translating the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures into Latin, Pope Francis wrote a letter announcing that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time would be celebrated as the Sunday of the Word of God. The Latin title of the Pope’s Letter recalls the incident when Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus after the Resurrection. St. Luke’s Gospel tells us that after the disciples explained why they were so downhearted, Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures which had been written about him and his eventual suffering and death. Ever since that day, the Church has turned to the Scriptures, remembering that they are the inspired Word of God and “a lamp unto our feet,” as we travel through this life to the next.
Last Sunday I made the point that St. Paul formed the community in Corinth, indeed, all of the various Christian communities that he founded, by situating the Gospel in the life of that community, by interpreting the Gospel of Jesus for that time and that place. This action continues today. We turn to the Scriptures and situate the Gospel in our time and our place and allow it to form us just as surely as it formed the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Philippians, the Romans, the Ephesians and the Colossians. That is precisely why the Holy Father wishes us to use this Sunday to make the point that the Word of God is the rudder that steers our Church.
This has not always been the case. Those of you who are my age or older will probably remember a time when our focus and our whole life as a Church was the celebration of the Sacraments. When the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century occurred, the non-Catholic Christians did away with five of the seven sacraments and emphasized a Bible Church. The Council of Trent that responded to the Protestant Reformation reacted to this initiative by emphasizing the sacraments and de-emphasizing the Scriptures.
In 1943, Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical calling for new translations of the Bible into vernacular languages using the original languages as a source instead of the Latin Vulgate that had been translated by St. Jerome. Pope Pius XII’s encyclical inaugurated the modern period of Roman Catholic biblical studies by encouraging the study of textual criticism and permitted the use of the historical-critical method to be informed by theology, Sacred Tradition, and ecclesiastical history on the historical circumstances of the text, hypothesizing about matters such as authorship, dating, and similar concerns. The eminent Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown described it as a "Magna Carta for biblical progress". This set in motion a movement that culminated in the Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII. In that Council, a dogmatic constitution on the Sacred Scriptures was written and published that called for a new reform that emphasized the Scriptures as our guide. This resulted in the current Lectionary for Sunday Mass with its three cycles that exposes us to more of the Bible and asks the presider to preach a homily rather than a sermon. The homily was to explain the Scriptural texts and help all Catholics to understand that we are also a Bible Church.
Today’s reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians is a good example. Apparently, the Corinthians had fallen prey to human jealousy and envy and had given way to advancing their own cause forgetting that their community is their privileged place of encounter with God's reign. In what must seem very silly to us, they had started arguing about who the more important was based upon who had baptized them, Apollos, Paul or Peter. He reminds them that they are united by Jesus, not by the person who baptized them. Apollos, Paul and Peter were preaching the Gospel of Jesus, and it was that Gospel that was the source of their unity. So Pope Francis reminds us through the observance of the Sunday of the Word of God that we are also united by the Gospel of Jesus. It is our task to make the Gospel well-known in our world as we seem to be walking in the same darkness that enveloped the people to whom Isaiah preached.
The light of the Gospel has illuminated the Church through the centuries. It is that light that we were given when we were baptized. It is that light that we are to hand on to our children and to our children’s children. It is the light of the Gospel to which Pope Francis asks us to recommit ourselves. We are led by the Scriptures, for they are surely a lamp onto our feet, helping us to tread the path of right relationship with God and neighbor.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator