3^rd Sunday, Year C, January 25, 2004

"Your words, Lord are spirit and life."

The congregation in the synagogue that had assembled in Nazareth to hear Jesus speak was the most fortunate body of men ever gathered to hear a sermon. Their lector and homilist began by reading a passage from Isaiah and then, after an intense moment of penetrating eye contact with his audience, he began to tell them that he, the one speaking to them, was the very one referred to by that prophecy. The reporter of this event, Saint Luke, will relate in a succeeding verse that his audience spoke well of him and "marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth."

We are the poorer for not having the whole sermon of our Lord recorded for us, but we rest content that the words of his that have been preserved in the Gospels are sufficient for our salvation. Those "gracious words" that poured forth from the mouth of Christ have, for 2000 years, transformed humanity, reversed the direction of sinners’ lives, corrected wrong thinking, stirred men to holiness and moral greatness, and caused a whole spiritual revolution in drawing men’s aspirations from temporal accomplishments towards that vitam venturi sFculi, "the life of the world to come".

I want to speak today about the power a word can have, or not, in transforming men’s lives. This is a philosophical matter, in a way, but it is also a biblical way of regarding the forcefulness, the power of words, or, better of the word. It is philosophical in the sense that even the ancient sages studied and measured the weight of words in affecting the way people thought, spoke, and consequently lived. Philosophy is the pursuit of truth, the love of truth. And it is biblical in the sense that God-speaking-to-humanity ought to make us wonder over His ‘humility’ in imparting His sublime thoughts to us, ignorant sinners, so much does He care for us. The totality of God’s utterances is collectively called The Word (in the singular). As you well know, in Jesus our Lord, God’s Word became flesh, which is to say, God became man, and therefore spoke to us from the mouth of Jesus. And so, our Lord is the personal uncovering of God, the revelation of God. He is the bible, in a sense: God living and talking among men.

We are in a time of crisis, in having an increasingly serious difficulty in being able to receive, to take in, the word of God. Words are spoken to be comprehended by another party. Words are communicative, they have a receptor as their aim. Words are spoken from the isolation of an individual speaker and reach out to be grasped by someone else, thus establishing a relation with, a connection to another person. Words join one person to another. This may seem rather elementary (and it is), but problems are often traced to something wrong in the beginning. In this case, the problem has to do with comprehension of the what is being said.

I seem to recall, vaguely, that in grammar school, one was given a grade given for what was called "reading comprehension." This was an indicator whether or not a student was succeeding in understanding what he was reading. I suspect that comprehension is often the difficulty with some modern educational methods which have adversely affected not only the education of our youth in their various academic pursuits, but also their ability to appreciate the faith, and the very word of God itself.

The irony about this is that ours is a time par excellence of words, of the unending outpouring of words. We are attacked by them on all sides. Consider their number from radio, TV (with its commercials), tapes, videos, CDs, DVDs, music (usually with words), newsprint of all kinds, mail and email, Internet and fax, and, needless to add, that incessant talking of people which is only rarely about anything significant or edifying. (I realize that I’m guilty in contributing my own part through writing and speaking). We consume more words than ever. But, are we truly communicating? It is risible that many adults are duped into thinking that our children are so much ‘smarter’ for their command of computers and other electronic media. Clicking buttons confidently and rapidly is no necessary indicator of intelligence! Nor is it an assurance that any profound (let alone good) meaning from the barrage of words encountered is effectively being received. True learning is not a mere recollection of so many facts (as displayed in popular TV programs) but the process of assimilating those bits and pieces of information into a whole, a unity of interconnected truths so that one can come to a comprehensive understanding and vision of life that is transforming, one that changes the way a person is and lives.

We are having a hard time putting all the facts together today, for a multiplicity of reasons, but certainly among them, because we are restricted in having the needed silence and meditation upon the things we hear, read, and see. We need to recover the ability to ponder things, to judge and assess what we are doing, to become reflective, discerning, thoughtful people. I mean this not in a self-centered, self-absorbed, or self-loving way. True communicating and learning take us out of our selves and enable us to live in a communion of persons, not only with each other, in a truly effective way, but even more importantly with God, the goal of and reason for our lives.

Deprived of the ability to think, and the silence it requires, robs us, despoils us of becoming holy people and even fully developed rational persons. It disables us from become committed Catholics, from being prayerful, from being able to take a stand on moral issues apart from the "herd mentality," based on feeling. It cripples our effectiveness to respond to the word of God, as that audience did at Nazareth, and to marvel at the gracious words that come out of the mouth of Jesus, or out of the Mass, or out of the catechism. The result is not only that the message can’t find its way into our minds, but that we–for all the wordiness around us–remain ever more alone, isolated from one another and, most grievous, distant from God himself. This is indeed an unhappy state to be in, and it causes emotional problems no less than spiritual ones. We need to shut off the words to hear the Word. We need to stop the noise of modern life to recover our humanity, and to restore our faith. Too much activity; not enough recollection.

And our problem is not only the proliferation of words–often without logic or meaningfulness–but the sort of words that are being said. Is all that we are hearing, saying and reading, truly worthy of being said? The good word builds up, the evil word kills.

This is one reason why I’m glad that there are families that have begun to turn off their TVs; or to home school their children; and to limit use Internet, CD players and video games. This is one reason why I’m happy to have people come to the chapel for an hour of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It’s also the reason why we ask people not to talk unnecessarily in church, hearing God rather than each other; and it’s why our sermons here try to be doctrinally focused rather than anecdotal. This also explains why we push the confessional, encouraging you to examine yourselves critically, reflectively, so as to make a change in your ways. Some people have a fear, a terror of silence, not because of the silence itself, but because when one has not been accustomed to reflecting, the resulting quiet reveals the void. We are not meant to be empty, but full of goodness, love and truth. And we cannot have these with the ‘junk food’ of the mind that is busyness, noise, endless chatter, constant music, and with the fast speed of life.

We were told today that Ezra the priest "read...and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law. Ezra read plainly from the book...interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. Then the people bowed down and prostrated themselves before the Lord."

May God grant us to hear and to comprehend his holy word, so that we might be led to Him!