The Book and the book of life

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

September 30, 2021: Celebrating St. Jerome

Nehemiah 8: 1-12; Luke 10: 1-12

Celebrating Jerome, we are reminded of how he dedicated his entire life for the Word of God. Vulgate, the famous translation and the most diffused of the versions for a long time in the Church, was majorly a work of Jerome. We see in the first reading the Book being openned and read in public and all the people passionately responding to it. This is a prototype of what a Church has to be, provided already in the Old Testament - the people of God united in the Word of God and together responding to the Word saying: the law of the Lord gives joy to the heart! 

The Book - has always remained the source of meaning and joy for the people of God. The Book here is not merely a set of printed papers bound together, but it refers to the living Word enshrined in the faith tradition of people and the community. It is the Word, who lives and moves amidst us, enlightening our minds and hearts, as to how our life has to be organised and celebrated. 

When the Word is listened to wholeheartedly, and it is put to practice, gradually the Book gets translated. It gets translated into the book of life... The Bible may be the Book of life, but it has to give rise to the book of my life, for every one around me to read, understand, experience and get to know God. With just reading the Bible, one does not become a son or a daughter of God, but in becoming the book, in tranlsating the Book into daily life choices. 

Hence the feast of today and the Word invite us to a coherence between the Book and the book of life, between the Word of God and the way the Word is lived by each of us. Look at Jesus preparing his apostles to be sent to proclaim the Word - he does not give them a training on how to proclaim, what scheme to follow and how to frame the announcement! He  simply tells them "proclaim the Reign" and rest of what he  says is all about how to live, where to stay, what to eat and wear, whom to meet and with whom to stay! In short, Jesus is focussed on their life and life practices, as he gives them the commission to proclaim the Word.

That is true of us too... We have the Word which has to determine our daily life; the Book that has to be the source of the book of our life - then we shall worthily be called God's people, sons and daughters of God.