St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is known for a contemplative approach to Scripture.
In a preface to a new book by fellow-Jesuit, Fr. James Martin, Pope Francis offers a reflection on the Word of God.
The Holy Father describes the author’s text as reflecting “a person who has fallen in love with the Word of God,” saying that the book led him to “wonder how often we manage to approach Scripture with the ‘hunger’ of a person who knows that that word really is the Word of God.”
The fact that God “speaks” should give us a little jolt each and every day. The Bible truly is the nourishment we need to handle our lives. It’s the “love letter” that God has sent — since long ago — to men and women living in every time and place. Treasuring the Word, loving the Bible, carrying it with us every day, with a little book of the Gospel in our pockets, maybe even pulling it up on our smartphones when we have an important meeting, or a difficult encounter, or a moment of unease … actions like these will help us grasp the extent to which Scripture is a living body, an open book, a vibrant witness to a God that is not dead and buried on the dusty shelves of history. Instead, Scripture journeys with us always, even today …”
The Pope insisted that the “Gospel is concrete, and eternal; it has just as much to do with our inner being and our interior life as it does with history and daily life. Jesus didn’t just talk about eternal life; He gave it to us. He didn’t just say “I am the resurrection”; He also resurrected Lazarus, who’d been dead for three days.”
Death and eternity
Another theme that the Pope picks up is a favorite of his, Jesus’ approach to death in the Bible.
He invites us to remember that “we men and women are destined for eternity. All of us are.
Each of us is a “half-line” or “ray,” to borrow a concept from geometry: we each have a starting point — our birth on this planet — but our lives all point toward the infinite. Yes, that’s right, toward infinity! What Scripture calls “eternal life” is the life that awaits us after death. It’s the life we can already touch right here and right now, as long as we dwell not in the egoism that saddens us but in the love that widens, that dilates our hearts. We are made for eternity.
Read the full preface here.
And today we celebrate...