‘He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.’ — Luke 24:45
Sunday, Jan. 26, will be celebrated as the Sunday of the Word of God, and it’s a good opportunity for Catholics of all ages to crack open a Bible and encounter God in His Word.
Surveys have shown that few Catholics read the Bible on their own or as a family. But what better place is there to encounter the person of Jesus Christ than in God’s Word? As St. Jerome once noted, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
For this reason, Pope Francis set aside a day specifically devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God – instituting the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time as the “Sunday of the Word of God” in his 2019 apostolic letter “Aperuit illis.” The title comes from St. Luke’s Gospel, where the Evangelist describes how the Risen Jesus appeared to His disciples, and how “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”
Through this celebration, the pope said he wanted to encourage people to read the Bible more often, let the Holy Spirit work in lives, and then open their hearts to the work of God’s mercy.
It is the Holy Spirit who “makes Sacred Scripture the living word of God, experienced and handed down in the faith of His holy people,” the pope wrote. God’s Word “has the power to open our eyes and to enable us to renounce a stifling and barren individualism and instead to embark on a new path of sharing and solidarity.”
Do not take God’s Word for granted, he said, “but instead to let ourselves be nourished by it, in order to acknowledge and live fully our relationship with Him and with our brothers and sisters.”
However, the Church also cautions people not to set aside only one day to open their Bible. People should read the Sacred Scriptures frequently if they want to grow in their faith.
God continues to speak His Word “and to break bread in the community of believers,” which is why Catholics need to “develop a closer relationship with sacred Scripture; otherwise, our hearts will remain cold and our eyes shut, inflicted as we are by so many forms of blindness,” the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments has noted.
The Sunday of the Word of God is meant to foster “an awareness of the importance of Sacred Scripture for our lives as believers, beginning with its resonance in the liturgy which places us in living and permanent dialogue with God,” the Vatican noted, quoting Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Evangelii gaudium”: “God’s word, listened to and celebrated, above all in the Eucharist, nourishes and inwardly strengthens Christians, enabling them to offer an authentic witness to the Gospel in daily life.”
— Catholic News Service, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Vatican News
Ideas to celebrate Sunday of the Word of God at home
- If you don’t already have a family Bible, get one and display it prominently in your home.
- Set aside time each week to gather as a family and read aloud a brief Scripture passage, perhaps the Sunday Gospel. Allow time to reflect together and discuss its meaning.
- Include Bible stories in your children’s reading, and when they are old enough, introduce them to the New American Bible revised edition (NABRE), the translation used at Mass.
- Join in the common prayer of the Church by praying parts of the Liturgy of the Hours as a family, such as Morning or Evening Prayer.
- Contemplate further on Scripture through the practice of lectio divina. There are numerous websites, smartphone apps and books to help.
- For older children and adults, read the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (“Dei Verbum”).
More online
At www.usccb.org: Read or listen to the daily Mass readings (English and Spanish), subscribe to get the daily readings via email, watch video reflections on each day’s readings, and more