In last week’s segment on the Mass, we quoted the words from the Introduction to the Missal concerning the four ways in which Christ is really present in the Mass. Last week we spoke of Christ’s presence in the gathered People of God.

This week we move on to the second way in which he is present – through his word. The Liturgy of the Word is neither a form of catechism nor a lesson in morality. We re-read passages from the Scriptures in order to let those words reverberate down to us in our own time. We want them to echo down to us. So in the first instance, the Liturgy of the Word is about God speaking to his people. It is about discovering now in our circumstances the God who spoke to those whose relationship with God is being recounted in the passages we read.

All the readings culminate in the reading of the Gospel where we hear of the words and doings of Christ. All of the Scriptures are incomplete until they come to Christ. And so we are being invited to take our place in those passages of the gospels and let Christ say to us what he said to the people in that passage and to let him do to us what he did to the people in that passage. We move in on those passages and see what comes of that deeper listening. We can’t pre-determine what will come out of that listening and need to be prepared for surprises. It may not be the whole passage which strikes us but maybe just a word or a phrase or an image which makes a home in us.

The Word works in its own way. What enables us to be stuck by the Word of God is the Spirit of God at work in us. I am often struck by the fact that what people have found helpful in a homily is not what the homilist actually said but that something which the homilist said was received by the person within their own mind and in their own circumstances which struck home to them. The Spirit is at work in that open space between what is said and celebrated and the prayerful presence of those gathered before the Lord.

Christ continues to make disciples of us today. We are not second hand disciples; we are personally called by the Lord. His Word bears his presence and creates relationship between himself and ourselves now. Through his Word – however it comes to us – he claims us as his disciples as truly as did with Peter, James, John, the Magdalen and all the rest.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin