THE WORD, OUR GREATEST BLESSING


SATURDAY, TWENTY SEEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME  

Joel 4:12-21; Ps 97:1-2,5-6,11-12; Lk 11:27-28

The Blessing of the Word of God

The day of the Lord is about the revelation of God and his holy will to the people and their situation. It is about God sending his word to us in a new and pronounced way to address our situation in time. The coming of the word God is a blessing to the faithful and a punishment to the evildoers. The punishment stems from the destruction of unjust and evil structures within society and the world. The destruction affects sinners in a painful way because they thrived on the illicit structures and pleasures. Hence, the demons inhabiting the sinful structures rule over them and use them as agents to perpetrate injustice and harm on good people. The day of the Lord is therefore a day of judgment for all peoples. Joel prophesied a worldwide judgment to take place in the Valley of Decision. “Let the nations rouse themselves, let them march to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for I am going to sit in judgment there on all the nations round. Put the sickle in: the harvest is ripe; come and tread: the winepress is full, the vats are overflowing, so great is their wickedness! Host on host in the Valley of Decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision!” God judges the world by the revelation of his word, which comes to reveal the truth of God and destroy falsehood and evil structures that men build on devilish lies.

Those who build their lives on the lies of Satan, who is the father of lies, would have their lives and the structures thereof destroyed by God’s revelation of his word. Hence, the same day of the Lord is a day of glory for the faithful people of God. “But the Lord will be a shelter for his people, a stronghold for the sons of Israel. You will learn then that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be a holy place, no alien will pass through it again.” God’s revelation of His word will destroy the unjust and sinful structures and lives that are inextricably dependent on them, and build up and strengthen the just and righteous structures and lives dependent on them. It would be a day of glory for Jerusalem, for the Lord will make her glorious by revealing himself and removing whatever is unclean in her. The Jerusalem here refers to the mystical Church of Christ and the individual faithful. “When that day comes, the mountains will run with new wine and the hills flow with milk, and all the river beds of Judah will run with water. A fountain will spring from the house of the Lord to water the wadi of Acacias. Egypt will become a desolation, Edom a desert waste on account of the violence done to the sons of Judah, whose innocent blood they shed in their country.” The revelation of God’s word brings healing to the just and the weak, and the flourishing of righteous living.

The day of the Lord is a mystical day. We must not think of it as a day that starts in an instant, but the period of God’s revelation of his word, which comes with an outpouring of grace for our salvation. God does not bless a few people in exclusion of others. When God gives a unique gift to a person or people, it is always in view of others. God grants great graces to some, so that they will play a major role in the salvation of others. So, the unique grace is for the salvation of all people. Based on this, our Lord corrected the woman who praised his mother on the basis of physical possession. “As Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, ‘Happy the womb that bore you and the breasts you sucked!’ But he replied, ‘Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!’” The woman’s statement was based on the false assumption that the Blessed Virgin Mary’s unique blessings are due to her physical conception of the Son of Man. Our Lord corrected her, that the key blessing is not unique to her, but to all who hear and keep the word of God as she did. We conceive and bring forth the word of God in our lives when we hear and keep the word. Based on this, we have noted that the spirit within us is Jesus Christ. We bear and suckle the Son of Man through our spiritual journey until we come to the fullness of his stature in beatific vision. We need to learn from the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to attain the goal of our spiritual life.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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