Word of God Sunday: Pilgrims of hope, hearers of the word (26 January 2025; Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21)

A reflection for the 6th Sunday of the Word of God, based on Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10 and Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21. Written and spoken by Kieran J. O'Mahony OSA.

www.tarsus.ie

Gentle piano music to close the meditation

Transcript

John’s Lane
D08 F8NW
26 February 2025
Word of God Sunday
Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Welcome

Welcome to this Sunday of the Word of God, established just six years ago by Pope Francis. The Word of God Sunday falls each year on the third Sunday in Ordinary Time, after the cycle of Christmas feasts. The choice of the third Sunday makes sense because on that day. we begin reading the Gospel for that particular year from the beginning. For example, today our Gospel is Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21, giving us the prologue of the Gospel and the opening scene of Jesus’ ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth. A good place to begin. Each year, the Word of God Sunday has a theme. This year the theme is taken from Psalm 119 — not the whole Psalm, you will be glad to know! — but verse 74: “I hope in your Word.” 

Topic

This year, the passage from Luke is especially appropriate for two reasons: (a) we hear the marvellous words “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen”; and (b) we notice at the end of the Isaiah citation the programme of Jesus: “to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour,” that is, the jubilee ear. Each merits further reflection. 

Steps

Fulfilled in your hearing is an electrifying affirmation. It means the word has somehow became a reality, it has penetrated the hearts of the hearers, speaking to them from within and changing their lives forever. In our worship, we hear every Sunday a substantial amount of Scripture. It is our hope too that what we hear will be fulfilled even as we listen. That can certainly happen if everyone makes an effort. For instance, the presider really should introduce the readings, giving something of the contexts so that people may profit from the proclaimed Word of God. Hearers too have a task. From experience, it makes a considerable difference if we prepare ourselves by reading and praying the readings beforehand, most easily in the company of others in a lectio group or a bible study fellowship. Such mulling over prepares us to hear the readings in the setting of common worship, as well as raising our expectations for the homily! Fulfilled in your hearing won’t just happen: we are called to prepare ourselves beforehand by reading and prayer and, within the liturgy, we are called to open our hearts to what the Spirit may say to each of us by means of the holy readings. 

The year of the Lord’s favour is a reference to the Jubilee Year. The ancient Israelites honoured the seventh day as a day of rest, the Sabbath. The land also needed to rest and legislation provided for crop rotation to give the land a chance to recover, this time every seventh year, the original sabbatical year. They even imagined a magnificent Jubilee Year, every 50 years or 7 by 7 plus 1. It was an ideal, a very appealing ideal. Every fifty years, there was to be a whole year of rest and restoration for the land, forgiveness of debts and freedom from any accumulated indebtedness. In this way, the ancient Israelites showed respect for creation: the land could rest and breathe again. They recognised the need, from time to time, for a completely fresh start, including a kind of blanket, unrestricted forgiveness. People did not have to be tracked all their lives by earlier mistakes or even previous sins. The great Jubilee themes were rest, restoration, forgiveness and freedom. Such themes have lost none of their relevance today, as we know only too well. 

In the faith community, 2025 is a spiritual Jubilee Year, under a great banner: Pilgrims of Hope. The theme for the Word of God takes takes up the very same theme: I hope in your word. In general, hope is in short supply in or time. In particular, believers — pilgrims of faith — are invited to nourish their own hope by means of the Word of God. It is always worth remembering the marvellous words of St Paul: Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us (Romans 5:5). Pilgrims of hope find their nourishment in the Word of God. 

Finally, our Gospel for this year — Luke — is under the banner of the prophet Isaiah and the Jubilee year, as we heard in the Gospel. It is a Gospel deeply marked by both the Holy Spirit and joy. Regularly, characters in the Gospel and especially in the parables are shown rejoicing. It is also a Gospel marked by forgiveness and being set free. Regularly, we hear of the “today” of salvation as different protagonists experience the liberating grace of forgiveness and healing. Even more, Luke teaches the social Gospel and the need to look after the poor and the powerless, the sick and the sinner, as one Eucharistic Prayer puts it. Nowadays this social Gospel includes our responsibility to bequeath to generations after us a world in which will be safe to live. Pope Francis has his finger very much on the button with his environmental teaching in Laudato Sii. 

To bring all these threads together, I have a practical proposal. It is still the case that many who come to church have never read even one Gospel through from beginning to end. Luke’s Gospel is especially appealing and eminently readable. Not all the stories are strictly historical, of course, but all show the fingerprints of a gifted writer, full of Gospel joy, full of the Holy Spirit, and yet grounded in the sometimes harsh reality of our world. You might consider reading through Luke’s Gospel in the course of this year — you will find it engaging and uplifting, life-giving and sustaining. We are all “pilgrims of hope” in this Jubilee year and we can still learn, in the words of Psalm 119, to “hope in your Word.”

Conclusion

Lord, inspire me to read your Scriptures
 and to meditate upon them day and night. 
 I beg you to give me real understanding of what I read, 
 that I in turn may put its precepts into practice.
 Yet, I know that understanding and good intentions are worthless,
 unless rooted in your graceful love.
 So I ask that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page.
 but channels of grace into my heart. Amen.