Pope Francis declared the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time the ‘Sunday of the Word of God’. The reason for doing this was to ensure that there would be one Sunday in the year when we would look at the understanding of the importance of the Word of God even though we listen to it every Sunday, or every weekday if we go to daily Mass or we read if we have a bible that we read from regularly, and a lot of other ways and times we may encounter it. One point that Pope Francis made towards the beginning of the letter instituting this day goes as follows: ‘The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and sacred Scripture is essential to our identity as Christians. Without the Lord who opens our minds to them, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures in depth. Yet the contrary is equally true: without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible.”
We have to be careful that we never take scripture for granted. It is integral to Christian life. In today’s readings we see the psaimist call on the Lord to ‘teach’ him and Mark refers to the Good News, saying ‘he (Jesus) proclaimed the Good News from God’. He then quotes Jesus, the second sentence of which is, ‘Repent, and believe the Good News.’ Today’s scripture contains points that highlight what Pope Francis is looking at in relation to this day. We pray that the Lord may teach us his paths and that we may grow in our faith in the Good News from God, proclaimed by Jesus Christ.