The Word: a living letter

Every year, the Sunday of the Word gives us the opportunity to return to the center, to that living Word that does not pass away, that continues to speak and call. It is not just about remembering the importance of the Bible, but about allowing ourselves to be reached by it, as by a voice that knows our name.

For María Antonia París, the Word of God was not just another book or a text to study. It was fire in the heart, life that imprinted itself within. She understood that the Gospel is not read from the outside, but welcomed as an experience that transforms and sends.

For this reason, she uses a simple yet provocative image: the Gospel is a personal letter that God writes to us. Not an old or generic letter, but a living word, addressed today, here, to each one of us. When read in this way, the Gospel ceases to be a reminder of the past and becomes a call, a guiding principle, a path.

This same passion for the Gospel marked the life of Saint Anthony Mary Claret, who understood his entire mission as a service so that the Word might be known and received. In his Autobiography, he clearly expresses the horizon of his life: “My aim is to make God better known, loved, and served by everyone” (Autobiography, n. 202).

Both María Antonia and Claret remind us that the Word is not understood only with the mind, but with a life given in response.

On this Sunday of the Word that we have just celebrated, we are once again given the invitation to open that letter, to read it slowly, with an open heart, and to let it challenge us. Because the Word, when truly welcomed, does not leave us unchanged: it transforms us and sends us, today, as it did yesterday, to proclaim the Good News through our lives.