Pope Francis designates the third Sunday of the Year (26/1/’20) as Sunday of the Word of God.
Pope Francis has designated the third Sunday of the Year (26/1/’20) as Sunday of the Word of God.
By a recent promulgation, called “Aperuit Illis” (“He opened to them [the Scriptures]”), Pope Francis has designated the third Sunday of the Year as Sunday of the Word of God. In it he tells us that:
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. Here, we are reminded of the teaching of Saint Ephrem: “Who is able to understand, Lord, all the richness of even one of your words? There is more that eludes us than what we can understand. We are like the thirsty drinking from a fountain. Your word has as many aspects as the perspectives of those who study it. The Lord has coloured his word with diverse beauties, so that those who study it can contemplate what stirs them. He has hidden in his word all treasures, so that each of us may find a richness in what he or she contemplates.”
He reminds us that:
When sacred Scripture is read in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written, it remains ever new. The Old Testament is never old once it is part of the New, since all has been transformed thanks to the one Spirit who inspired it. The sacred text as a whole serves a prophetic function regarding not the future but the present of whoever is nourished by this word. Jesus himself clearly stated this at the beginning of his ministry: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21). Those who draw daily nourishment from God’s word become, like Jesus, a contemporary of all those whom they encounter: they are not tempted to fall into sterile nostalgia for the past, or to dream of ethereal utopias yet to come.
For further resources go to: https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2019/12/17/resources-for-sunday-of-the-word-of-god/