Francis calls for new season of greater love for Scripture, to deepen our personal relationship with JesusPope Francis addressed the Catholic Biblical Federation on Friday. Aleteia invites you to meditate with one of these 11 ideas from his address:
“The word of God is alive and active” (Heb 4 :12); it does not die, nor does it age, but it remains for ever (cf. 1 Pt 1: 25). It stays young in the presence of all that passes away (cf. Mt 25: 35) and preserves those who put it into practice from inner aging.
It is living and gives life.
It is important to remember that the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giver, loves to work through Scripture.
The Bible is not a beautiful collection of sacred books to study – it is the Word of Life to be sown.
We cannot do without the Word of Jesus, the only Word of eternal life (cf. Jn 6: 68), which we need every day.
It would be beautiful to see the flourishing of “a new season of greater love for sacred Scripture on the part of every member of the People of God, so that … [they] deepen their personal relationship with Jesus” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, 72).
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It is the desire of the Spirit to mould us as a Church based on the Word: a Church that does not speak for herself or of herself, but who has at her heart and on her lips the Lord, and who draws from His Word every day.
The Word gives life to every believer, teaching them to renounce themselves so as to announce Him.
A Church that lives in listening to the Word is never satisfied with her own security. She is obedient to the unpredictable novelties of the Spirit.
The Bible is the best vaccine against closure and self-preservation. It is the Word of God, not ours, and it takes us away from being at the centre, preserving us from self-sufficiency and triumphalism, constantly calling us to come out of ourselves.
Let us pray, and let us ensure that that the Bible does not remain in the library among the many books that speak of it, but rather that it runs through the streets of the world and waits where people live.
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