Fifth Sunday

WORD of GOD

This weekend we focus on God’s Word – Verbum Dei – of the Bible. What is God’s Word? The bible, of course, most would say. But is it? Certainly the Word of God could be attributed to the Holy Scriptures, but it is more than that. Why? The Word of God is Christ himself. God’s incarnate word – the Father’s divine thoughts articulated in the flesh. It is Christ who as the divine Word has revealed the Father and the Spirit to us. With Christ the fullness of divine Revelation was completed. All the divine truths necessary for salvation were passed on from Christ to the Apostles. As the Jewish Messiah he fulfilled all prophecies in the old Testament and established with his divine Blood the new covenant or testament. These truths are the Word of God that people in the thousands believed and died for in the early Church. Initially these truths, entrusted to the Church, were preached orally by the apostles, and, in time, some of these truths were written down, that gave rise to the New Testament (27 books). Note that all the apostles taught these truths and all but one (St John) died for them, yet the majority of them did not leave us a written text. But they did preach the Word of God – they taught Christ, in word and deed. One good example is the Apostles Creed, that all Christians believe is God’s word yet it is not in the scriptures. So the fullness of the Word of God is both the oral tradition of the Church and written texts of the Bible.