The Word of God

24. John Paul II reminds consecrated persons that living spirituality means first of all starting afresh from the person of Christ, true God and true man, present in his Word, “the first source of all spirituality”.⁷¹ Holiness is inconceivable without a renewed listening to the word of God. In Novo Millennio Ineunte, we read: “It is especially necessary that listening to the Word of God should become a life giving encounter... which draws from the biblical text the living Word which questions, directs and shapes our lives”.⁷² It is there, in fact, where the Master reveals himself and educates the mind and the heart: It is there that the vision of faith matures, learning to look at reality and events through the eyes of God, to the point of having “the mind of Christ” (1Cor 2:16).

It was the Holy Spirit who sparked the Word of God with new light for the founders and foundresses. Every charism and every Rule springs from it and seeks to be an expression of it. In continuity with founders and foundresses their disciples today are called to take up the Word of God and to cherish it in their hearts so that it may be a lamp for their feet and a light for their path (cf. Ps 118:105). The Holy Spirit will then be able to lead them to the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 16:13).

The Word of God is nourishment for life, for prayer and for the daily journey, the principle which unifies the community in oneness of thought, the inspiration for ongoing renewal and apostolic creativity. The Second Vatican Council had already indicated that the first great principle of renewal is a return to the Gospel.⁷³

Within communities and in groups of consecrated men and women, as in the whole Church, a more lively and immediate contact with the Word of God has developed in recent years. It is a path which must continue to be walked down with an ever greater intensity. The Pope has said: “You must not tire of meditating on Holy Scripture and above all on the Gospels so that they can imprint upon you the features of the Incarnate Word”.⁷⁴

Community life also fosters the rediscovery of the ecclesial dimension of the Word: receive it, meditate upon it, live it together, communicate the experiences which blossom from it and thus submit yourself to an authentic spirituality of communion.

In this context it is good to remember the need for constant reference to the Rule, because in the Rule and in the Constitutions “there is a map for the whole journey of discipleship in accordance with a specific charism confirmed by the Church”.⁷⁵ This way of following translates the particular interpretation of the Gospel given by the founders and foundresses as the result of a particular prompting of the Spirit and it helps the members of the Institute live concretely according to the Word of God.

Nourished by the word, made new, free and conformed to the Gospels, consecrated men and women can be authentic servants of the Word in the task of evangelization. This is how they carry out a priority for the Church at the beginning of the new millennium: “we must rekindle in ourselves the impetus of the beginnings and allow ourselves to be filled with the ardour of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost”.⁷⁶