Spirit and Life

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Now his mother and brethren came to him, and they could not get to him because of the crowd. And it was told him, ‘Your mother and your brethren are standing outside, wishing to see you.’ But he answered and said to them, ‘My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of God and act upon it’” (Luke 8:19-21).

Our Lord gives great importance to the Word of God. Everybody who is to be so-called related to Him has to be someone who hears the Word of God and acts upon it.

Elsewhere in Scripture, we're told, “Your words, Lord, are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Those are very powerful words: Spirit and Life. We come to the Word of God to find enlightenment, a light for our path, a lampstand, a light that shows us the way in our journey. We come to the Word of God to find peace, joy, and meaning. It's a continual revelation of a mystery.

Initially, the apostles did not understand the Word. They did not understand the parable that He spoke to them. But over time, they came to understand more and more, and when the Holy Spirit came, the penny dropped.

Also, throughout their life, the Holy Spirit continued to work, and so it is with us. The mystery of the Word gets revealed to us little by little. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will make some word jump about the page or hit us in the face.

The norm of our plan of life, whereby we read a few words of the Gospel every day, can be very important.

When I came in contact with Opus Dei and I heard about reading the Gospel for a few minutes every day, my first reaction was to think: ‘Can anything good come out of reading something or doing something for a few minutes every day? It's such a short period of time.’ But seventy years later, I think of it differently.

Sometimes we might read a word of the Gospel, a phrase, maybe a chapter. Those words can nourish our soul and our heart, can open horizons for us, and help us to see the whole mystery of our faith from a different optical angle.

Those words are deep. With reason, St. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

What is there in this world that is worth more than the words of eternal life? When we have the words of eternal life, then we have a treasure. Heaven is open to us, and the mysteries of this world are open to us.

We're told in Scripture that the words of Jesus are not like the words of other men. “He taught them as someone with authority, and not like the scribes” (Matt. 7:29). The words of Jesus are different.

In the parables, we discover great lessons for life. In the course of our lives, part of the mysteries of God are revealed to us little by little. We see things at different stages of our lives that we didn't see formerly. And we have a hunger in us for those words of eternal life.

The Book of Amos says, “‘The days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will send a hunger into the country, not hunger for bread nor thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God’” (Amos 8:11-14). Deep down, each soul and heart need to hear the Word of God.

I know a priest who in the last few months has had a commentary on the Catechism of the Catholic Church going on a Friday evening online. When he finished that, he decided to start a sort of a Bible commentary. The flier was sent out and 350 people applied.

The other sessions that he had, he would get nineteen or twenty people. He had—I think it was a Google group—a platform that could only take one hundred people, so two hundred fifty people had to be turned away. He had to move to a different platform.

You can see in this that there is a hunger for hearing the Word of God. We can have great faith in those words.

The Book of Isaiah says, “For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10-11).

Isaiah speaks of the fruitfulness of the Word of God. Those words that are planted like mustard seeds (Matt. 13:31-32) in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds—they yield an abundant fruit.

For those words that perhaps we transmit to other people in a private conversation, in a talk, in an odd moment with one of your children, we have to embed those words in good soil that over time will yield their abundant fruit, because each one of those words is destined to bring me to “the end for which I sent it” (cf. Isa. 55:11).

The Catechism says, “All sacred Scripture is a single book and this book is Christ” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 134).

To nourish oneself with Scripture is to nourish oneself with Christ: St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience on St. Jerome, November 14, 2007).

It's a very good habit that every day we will open our Gospel, read a few words, and try and make those words more personal.

I heard a Dutch missionary priest in Singapore one time saying that the Bible is really a wonderful book. Some of the time, this seems almost like a trite statement, but it really is a wonderful book, a place where we can get new lights, new projects for our life, new meaning, and new purpose.

It's a very important few moments of the day that we reflect on those words for everyday living—"Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it,” we’re told (Luke 8:21).

St. Paul to the Hebrews says, “The Word of God is living, efficacious, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12).

Over the course of our life, of all those days where we have that little dose, as it were, or a shot of the Word of God, when we build up a store of things that are living, efficacious, and sharper, he says, “it penetrates to the very division of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow” (Heb. 4:12). It is able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

St. Peter says, “The word for you will be a lamp that shines in a dark place” (2 Pet. 1:19). There could be moments in our lives when we're in a dark place. We might be low, we might be lonely, we might be in pain, morally or physically.

It might seem that nothing is working out too well in our lives or that we've come to some sort of a crossroads or a dead end.

But we have that lamp that shines there in that dark place. We can get our encouragement, our hope, our joy from the words of Christ that we find in Scripture.

He says, “It shines in a dark place until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19).

With the words that are spirit and life, we know that the dawn will come. There's always a new dawn and with it a morning star, a new hope, a new principle of energy, something new to look forward to and to look up to, because those words are spirit and life.

It might seem on some occasions that the things we have read don't seem to speak to us. But we shouldn't get discouraged.

We could return and ask with the Psalms: “Lord, give me life according to your word!” (Ps. 119:169). Also in the Psalms, it says: “Your word is a lamp for my steps and a light on my way” (Ps. 119:105).

Somebody once wrote, “I heard some beautiful things in the writings of Aristotle and Socrates; but nowhere did I read, ‘Come to me, all you who labor under heavy burdens, and I will give you rest’” (Matt. 11:28).

A few times of the year, we have the feast days of the evangelists: St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. It can be good to think on those days of the treasure that the evangelists have left us.

Their writings are a great legacy that have lasted down through the centuries and given rise to great things, have inspired many hearts, solved many problems.

We have a great debt of gratitude to those evangelists who lived out their vocation in a very faithful way. In spite of their miseries and their shortcomings, God used them to bring forth fruit that will last, to transmit His words so that they could give spirit and life to so many people. We are called to walk in their footsteps.

In St. Matthew, we hear, “Whoever hears my words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock” (Matt. 7:24).

We are all very much in need of building our house on rock: our Christian vocation, maybe our marriage vocation, our professional vocation.

All the time, everything we do has to be built on rock, to produce that fruit that will last. We find that rock in those words of Scripture.

In the Book of Jeremiah, confidence is nourished by the joy of feeling loved: “When your words found me,” he says, “I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16).

Many of the saints have encouraged identifying a few little words from Scripture: “Lord, that I may see” (Luke 18:41), or other words that strike us, or little phrases, and repeating them frequently as little aspirations throughout the day.

There may be different words and phrases that fit our mood, our situation, the time of year, the state of our life or of our apostolate. They can be very relevant for us.

When the disciples on the road to Emmaus heard the explanation of the Scriptures, they experienced a burning in their hearts: “Were not our hearts burning within us as we went along the way?” (Luke 24:32).

As we come to love and to know the words of Scripture, to savor them, chew on them, the Holy Spirit can give rise to a similar burning in our hearts. They rediscovered the reasons for hope and they were full of the joy of the meeting.

St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta says, “Never be so low as to forget the joy of the risen Christ” (cf. Mother Teresa, No Greater Love).

In the words of Scripture, we find joy. The message of Christ is a message of joy, of hope. We are an Easter people.

Our Lord is always opening our minds a little more to understand the Scriptures, to penetrate a little deeper there to see their great wealth and value.

My sister told me recently how, when her daughter brings her seven-year-old son to school, when she's driving home, she calls my sister on the phone, and they have a little chat each morning. She puts the phone’s loudspeaker on. That’s how she talks to her when she's driving.

She has a three-year-old daughter sitting in the back seat who doesn't understand that it's the loudspeaker of the phone that’s on. She thinks it's the radio.

The three-year-old often says, “Turn it off, mummy. Shut it down, mummy.” My sister, her grandmother, is hearing this from her granddaughter, as though saying: your words are not of spirit and life.

We know that in the words of Scripture, we always find words that are spirit and life.

St. Paul to the Thessalonians says, “We give thanks to God always, because having received from us the divine word we preached, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as it truly is: the word of God, who is at work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

There may be great things that God wants to accomplish in our implementation of those words.

Many times in history, I read in a book recently, Europe has encountered all sorts of great difficulties, periods of transformation and crises.

But, says St. John Paul II: they've always been overcome by taking new savor from the inexhaustible reserve of the vital energy of the Gospels. The Word of God has built civilizations and changed civilizations.

As we look to the 21st century, and we hope for the new flourishing of the Church in the world, the new flourishing of the family, all of that can stem from our simple contemplation of the Word of God.

We can dream great dreams because that's what the early Christians did. When the horizon looked so difficult, so pagan, so impossible, Our Lord “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). He unveiled the meaning of the Paschal Mystery.

St. Paul says to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Try and help your children, maybe little children, little by little, to be exposed to the Word of God in small doses because, as St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6).

The Holy Spirit is there behind those words, and He makes Scripture the living Word of God, experienced and handed down in the faith of His holy people.

There was a Catholic lord here in Nairobi about ten years ago. He was one of the main Catholic MPs and then he became a Catholic lord, Lord Alton, a great pro-life speaker in the UK.

He was giving a lecture about ethics, and at one stage, he made a statement where he said: Only Christianity is capable of changing the hearts of men. Governments can't, NGOs can't. All sorts of other organizations, or factories, or industries are not capable of changing the hearts of men. Only Christianity can do that.

It's a rather beautiful phrase. We have in our hands a great weapon: the Word of God, and the teachings contained therein, to bring about the great transformations and conversions that we see which are needed in the world.

In Hong Kong, the country is about 5 percent Catholic. Many people pass through Catholic schools. As it happens in many countries, the best schools are often the Catholic schools. Not too many people get converted there, but often they convert later in life.

There was one fellow who passed through a Catholic school but wasn't particularly touched by anything. But then, when he went to study in Canada, he decided to read the New Testament just for culture's sake.

As he read through the New Testament, he was rather struck by the answers of Jesus to the questions that He was asked. He realized: ‘Wow! This Jesus is a pretty clever guy. His answers are very clever.’

This fellow, when he came across a question that Our Lord was asked, he would cover the page and think about how he would answer that question, and then he would uncover the page and look at the answer of Jesus and say: ‘Oh, His answer was much better than mine. So clever.’

He did this a few times and then he came to the question that says: “To whom should we render honor? To God or to Caesar?”

He covered the page, thought about it for some time, and came up with a very long-winded answer.

When he uncovered the page, he found Our Lord just saying, whatever it was, in thirteen or sixteen words: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Matt. 22:17-21). Again, he thought: ‘Wow! So clever.’

So impressed was he with the clever words of Jesus that eventually, he converted. Later he joined Opus Dei and later, he was ordained a priest. He is now the second Chinese priest of Opus Dei in Hong Kong. The words of Our Lord are truly spirit and life.

The prophet Ezekiel, when commanded by the Lord to read the scroll of the book, said, “it was in my mouth, as sweet as honey” (Ezek. 3:3).

St. Peter says, “Simply proclaim the Lord Christ holy in your hearts and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope you have. But give it with courtesy and respect, and with a clear conscience, so that those who slander your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their accusations” (1 Pet. 3:15-16).

Our Lord warns us, in other ways, to pay great attention to Scripture. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we're told how the rich man, when he was sent to hell, asked that he might go back and warn his relatives so that they would not come to this place.

But he was told by God that he had Moses and the prophets to listen to (Luke 16:27-29). In other words, they have the words of Scripture. Let them hear those words.

Our Lord invites us to use our time well so that we get to know those words.

A lady told me once how we have more exposure to Scripture than any other Christian denomination. Sometimes we think the Protestants hear a lot about Scripture, but many Protestants don't go to church, or they only hear it on Sundays.

But a Catholic who goes to Mass every day has all the choicest parts of Scripture pre-selected and exposed day after day over long periods of time. This is a great treasure.

In the document of the Second Vatican Council on Scripture and Revelation, Dei Verbum, it says: “It is common knowledge that among all the Scriptures, even those of the New Testament, the Gospels have a special preeminence, and rightly so, for they are the principal witness for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior.”

That's why we stand for the Gospel, and even little children of an early age learn at Mass to stand for the Gospel.

It’s interesting that we give a few moments of our day to those words of pre-eminence that we find in the Gospel. Those words can enrich us in special ways. The Gospels exert a fascination even on those who are strangers to the Christian world.

St. Ambrose says: “And let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for we speak to him when we pray; we hear him when we read the divine saying” (St. Ambrose, On the Duties of Ministers). This is again quoted in Dei Verbum.

The risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of His Word and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world.

This is one of the functions of the Church. If you look in any documents of the Church or any discourses of the Holy Father, you'll find a very rich commentary or reference to Scripture.

If you look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and look up any points of doctrine, you'll find a continual reference to Scripture. In fact, a very good way to learn a little more about the truth that's contained in Scripture is to read the Catechism.

St. Ephraim says: “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 words have as many aspects as the perspectives of those who study it. The Lord has colored 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” (St. Ephraim, Commentary on the Diatessaron). There are treasures there waiting for us to discover them.

Archbishop Bruno Forte says, “If you understand that the Bible is the ‘letter of God,’ which speaks to your heart, then you will approach it with the trepidation and the desire with which one who is in love reads the words of the Beloved.

“Whoever wants to live from Jesus,” he says, “must listen incessantly to the Sacred Scriptures, no one excepted. It is in them that the countenance of the Beloved is revealed, in this today which is passing and in the day of love without end.”

Paraphrasing Pope Benedict XVI (Discourse, Sept 1, 2006), he says: “‘I seek your face, O Lord: seeking the face of Christ must be the life of all of us Christians. … If we persevere in seeking the face of the Lord, at the end of our pilgrimage our eternal joy will be Jesus, our recompense and glory forever’” (Bruno Forte, Pastoral Letter, January 27, 2007).

Archbishop Forte continues: “Thus God, who is Father and Mother in love, will speak just to you, and the faithful, intelligent, humble, and prayerful listening to what he says to you will slowly begin to satiate your need for light, your thirst for love.

“Learning to listen to the voice that speaks to you in Sacred Scripture is to learn to love: The Word of God,” he says, “is the good news against solitude! For this reason, listening to the Scriptures is a listening that liberates and saves. … The Word of God is God himself in the sign of his Word! It shares in his power. …

“The problem you are having,” he says, “has been experienced by many before you—Abraham, Sara, Moses, Jeremiah, Esther, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul. These and other men and women of the Bible can tell you about the struggle and the joy of believing” (ibid.).

We find “a fountain of life” in Scripture. “Listen, read, meditate on the Word; taste it, love it, celebrate it; live it and proclaim it in words and deeds. This is the way that is opening to you if you understand that in the Word of God is the fountain of life. In it God visits you in person: for this reason the Word implicates you, catches up your heart, and offers itself to your faith as a help and a defense in your spiritual growth” (ibid.).

We can turn to Our Lady and ask her help in our apostolate of spreading the knowledge of the Gospel.

“He who hears my word is my mother, sister, and brother” (Luke 8:21). We are told that Our Lady “pondered these words carefully in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Archbishop Forte says, “Mary is an icon of fruitful listening to the Word. She teaches us to welcome it, to care for it, and to meditate on it without ceasing. ‘Mary, for her part, treasured all these things, meditating on them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19).

“As a perfect image of the Church, Mary allows herself to be formed by the Word of God: ‘Let it be done to me according to your Word’ (Luke 1:38). And listening, she makes a gift of love: the Virgin of the Annunciation goes to Elizabeth to help her in her need.

“The woman of listening, Mary presents herself in the Visitation as the Mother of love: ‘How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ Her voice is the bearer of messianic joy: ‘When the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy’ (Luke 1:43-44).

“Her blessedness,” says Archbishop Forte, “is to have heard and believed the Word of the Eternal: ‘Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill his words to her’” (Luke 2:45).

“Creature of the Word, we can ask Our Lady, who intercedes for us in the glory of God, to help us to live as she did in listening to the Word, to welcome the Word of life and bring him to others, in transparency and in the concerns of our everyday life” (ibid.).

Mary, may you help us to learn and experience that His words truly are Spirit, and they are life.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

VA