Memory of the Church

Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I am the good shepherd,
my sheep listen to my voice,
and they become
one flock and one fold.
.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

John 3,31-36

He who comes from above is above all others; he who is of the earth is earthly himself and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven bears witness to the things he has seen and heard, but his testimony is not accepted by anybody; though anyone who does accept his testimony is attesting that God is true, since he whom God has sent speaks God's own words, for God gives him the Spirit without reserve. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to his hands. Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, but anyone who refuses to believe in the Son will never see life: God's retribution hangs over him.'

 

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Jesus, who descended from heaven to be with us, is the true hope for the world. He was sent by God to communicate to us divine life, that life that he lives in a unique way with the Father in heaven. The evangelist writes: "He testifies to what he has seen and heard." It is the sense of Jesus' mission in the world: revealing the mystery of God who loves us in an unimaginable way. Without Jesus' word, the mystery of God's love would have remained impenetrable to us. Jesus reveals the Father. In this is mission is comprised his entire life. Jesus did not come on earth to assert himself or to realize his personal projects, as each one of us generally does. He came down from heaven to communicate to men and women the "words of God" and to give all of us "the Spirit" who leads and guides. This is the mystery hidden by the centuries that Jesus came to reveal to us and that the Holy Scriptures preserve and communicate. Hence we should love and be devoted to the Holy Scriptures as they contain "the Word of God." Every day we are called to listen to them and meditate on them until we make them our own. The Bible is not just any book: it is the chest that holds the thought of God, the Word who became flesh. This is why the "sacred page", as the Fathers called it, must be opened and tasted daily, letting us be guided by the "Spirit" who has been given to us "without measure" also for this reason. The words of the Holy Scriptures, beyond their literal meaning, offer - if read with the help of the Spirit - a light that allows us to read in depth the history we live. Gregory the Great said that "Scripture grows with those who read it." It is to say that it illuminates our steps in the ways of the world so that we can be instruments in God's hands to hasten the coming of the kingdom of heaven.