Dear Parishioners,

Today we celebrate Word of God Sunday, and it is such a rich celebration! We might start off by asking, "What is the Word of God?", but that would be the wrong question. The Word of God is not a "what", but a "who." We read in the first chapter of John, "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." The Word is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who became man, and is Jesus Christ. Indeed we hear in the first reading from Jonah that "The word of the Lord came to Jonah." The Word is not a written letter, but a person who is "living and effective," and miraculously works through the written words of Sacred Scripture. 
The books that were included in Sacred Scripture were decided upon at the Council of Rome in 382 AD, 300 years after the death of Jesus. Knowing this history, we come to understand that it is the Catholic Church, and no other, who gives us the Bible that comes from our experience of the Word of God, and we call this Sacred Tradition. This is important to understand as we hear our Protestant brothers and sisters interpreting for themselves the Bible that was written and compiled by the Catholic Church. Only the Catholic Church has the authority to interpret what the Bible says, just like only the writer of a journal has the ultimate authority to interpret what is written in that journal. 

 Today we bring our Bibles that contain the Word of God to be blessed. We ask for these Bibles to be blessed so that we may be blessed in our understanding of and encounter with the Word of God. 
 The best way to encounter the Word of God through Scripture is through a style of praying called "lectio divina," which means a "divine reading." We read through a chosen passage several times, imagining that we are in the story, or are one of the characters in the story, and through this prayerful reading and imagination, God will speak to us and we will speak to Him. In this prayer, pay attention to what moves your soul or what image sticks out to you. God will not simply reveal Himself to you, but also reveal yourself to you. This ancient practice of "lectio divina" is what the current "mindfulness" craze is trying to imitate, but without God. 
 In this year of prayer, I pray we can all grow in our prayer lives and be able to more profoundly encounter the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ.

 Buen Camino,
Fr. Philip Brune