Word of God deepens experience at Mass: Benedict

VATICAN CITY (Zenit.org) – Benedict XVI has underlined the importance of the Word of God in living our personal vocations: our lifelong call to holiness and the specific call of each person.



These were some of the points highlighted by the Pope in his latest apostolic exhortation, Verbum Domini, published on 11 November by the Vatican.
The Word of God, he said, “calls each one of us personally, revealing that life itself is a vocation from God. In other words, the more we grow in our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, the more we realise that He is calling us to holiness in and through the definitive choices by which we respond to His love in our lives, taking up tasks and ministries which help to build up the Church.
“Here we touch upon one of the pivotal points in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which insisted that each member of the faithful is called to holiness according to his or her proper state in life.”

He addressed specific words to people in the various vocations and states in life:


Ordained ministers


Speaking of ordained ministers, he noted that “Bishops, priests, and deacons can hardly think that they are living out their vocation and mission apart from a decisive and renewed commitment to sanctification, one of whose pillars is contact with God’s Word.”


The priest “needs to approach the Word with a docile and prayerful heart so that it may deeply penetrate his thoughts and feelings and bring about a new outlook in him,” Benedict XVI stated.


Speaking to permanent deacons, he recommended that they “nourish their lives by the faith-filled reading of sacred Scripture, accompanied by study and prayer.”


The Pope next noted that “those aspiring to the ministerial priesthood are called to a profound personal relationship with God’s Word, particularly in lectio divina, so that this relationship will in turn nurture their vocation.”


He added that “it is in the light and strength of God’s Word that one’s specific vocation can be discerned and appreciated, loved and followed, and one’s proper mission carried out, by nourishing the heart with thoughts of God, so that faith, as our response to the Word, may become a new criterion for judging and evaluating persons and things, events and issues.”


“Great care should be taken to ensure that seminarians always cultivate this reciprocity between study and prayer in their lives,” the Pontiff said.


Consecrated life


Addressing some Words to those in the consecrated life, the Holy Father noted that “both old and new expressions of special consecration are called to be genuine schools of the spiritual life, where the Scriptures can be read according to the Holy Spirit in the Church, for the benefit of the entire People of God.”


He affirmed that contemplative men and women in particular, “by their lives of prayer, attentive hearing and meditation on God’s Word, remind us that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”


Benedict XVI spoke next of the lay faithful, “who live out their specific vocation to holiness by a life in the Spirit expressed in a particular way by their engagement in temporal matters and by their participation in earthly activities.”

He appealed to dioceses to provide opportunities for the laity “to be trained to discern God’s will through a familiarity with His Word, read and studied in the Church under the guidance of her legitimate pastors.”


Marriage and family


The Pope specifically underlined the role of the Word of God in marriage and the family. “It must never be forgotten that the Word of God is at the very origin of marriage and that Jesus Himself made marriage one of the institutions of His Kingdom, elevating to the dignity of a sacrament what was inscribed in human nature from the beginning,” he said.


The Pontiff continued: “Fidelity to God’s Word leads us to point out that nowadays this institution is in many ways under attack from the current mentality. 


“In the face of widespread confusion in the sphere of affectivity, and the rise of ways of thinking which trivialise the human body and sexual differentiation, the Word of God reaffirms the original goodness of the human being, created as man and woman and called to a love which is faithful, reciprocal and fruitful.”


He affirmed that part of authentic parenthood is to pass on and bear witness to the meaning of life in Christ: through their fidelity and the unity of family life, spouses are the first to proclaim God’s Word to their children.
“The ecclesial community must support and assist them in fostering family prayer, attentive hearing of the Word of God, and knowledge of the Bible.”
Pope tells how to improve participation in Mass through Scripture
In his second postsynodal apostolic exhortation, Benedict XVI offered seven practical proposals for promoting fuller participation in the Mass.


Verbum Domini, dated 30 September, the feast of St Jerome, a Father of the Church who first translated the Bible into Latin in the 4th century and patron of Bible scholars, was presented on 11 November.
The exhortation draws from the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops from 5-26 October, 2008 at the Vatican which had for its theme “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”


Verbum Domini is divided into three parts and an introduction and covers themes including God the Father as source and inspiration of the Word, sin as a refusal to hear the Word of God, the “dark” passages of the Bible, and the importance of the homily.


He ranges from theological to practical in the document, which is available at the Vatican Web site in a 200 page edition.


Among the practical themes is the section on “suggestions and practical proposals for promoting fuller participation in the liturgy.”


The first of the recommendations involves “celebrations of the Word of God.”


The Pontiff noted a recommendation from the Synod fathers that pastors should promote times devoted to such celebrations, “privileged occasions for an encounter with the Lord. This practice will certainly benefit the faithful, and should be considered an important element of liturgical formation.”
“Celebrations of this sort are particularly significant as a preparation for the Sunday Eucharist; they are also a way to help the faithful to delve deeply into the riches of the Lectionary, and to pray and meditate on sacred Scripture, especially during the great liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter.”

He mentioned celebrations of the Word as a particular benefit for communities without sufficient priests for regular Sunday and holy day Masses.
He cautioned against these celebrations being confused with the Mass.


The second recommendation involves the Word and silence.

“The Word, in fact, can only be spoken and heard in silence, outward and inward,” the Pope affirmed. 

But, he observed, “Ours is not an age which fosters recollection; at times one has the impression that people are afraid of detaching themselves, even for a moment, from the mass media.”


Thus, people must be “educated in the value of silence”, he suggested. “Rediscovering the centrality of God’s Word in the life of the Church also means rediscovering a sense of recollection and inner repose. […] Only in silence can the Word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the Word and, inseparably, woman of silence.”


The Pope called for the liturgy of the Word to be celebrated in such a way that favours meditation. “Silence, when called for, should be considered ‘a part of the celebration,’” he said.


Benedict XVI encouraged a solemn proclamation of the Word of God, with outward signs such as carrying the Gospel Book in procession, or singing the Gospel on certain solemnities. He gave consideration to practical matters such as church acoustics and the visibility and decoration of the ambo.
He also reiterated Church law that Scripture may not be replaced by other texts. “It should also be kept in mind that the Responsorial Psalm is also the Word of God, and hence should not be replaced by other texts; indeed it is most appropriate that it be sung.”


The sixth recommendation has to do with liturgical song. In this regard, the Pope observed: “As part of the enhancement of the Word of God in the liturgy, attention should also be paid to the use of song at the times called for by the particular rite. Preference should be given to songs which are of clear biblical inspiration and which express, through the harmony of music and words, the beauty of God’s Word. We would do well to make the most of those songs handed down to us by the Church’s tradition which respect this criterion. I think in particular of the importance of Gregorian chant.”


He made special mention of the visually and hearing impaired.

“I encourage our Christian communities to offer every possible practical assistance to our brothers and sisters suffering from such impairments, so that they too can be able to experience a living contact with the Word of the Lord.”