In his motu proprio of 30 September 2019, Aperuit illis, Pope Francis has declared that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study, and dissemination of the word of God.

We are to ponder the deep relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of the believers, and sacred Scripture:

• the Lord opens our minds so that we can understand the Scriptures;
• the Scriptures help us to comprehend the mission of Jesus and of his Church in the world;

Reading, meditating about, and living the Word of God is a life-long commitment of the believers:

A day devoted to the Bible should not be seen as a yearly event but rather a year-long event, for we urgently need to grow in our knowledge and love of the Scriptures and of the risen Lord, who continues to speak his word and to break bread in the community of believers.

Aperuit illis 8

The Sundays of the year 2025 (Liturgical Year C) will be offering us readings from the Gospel according to Luke.

This is the longest of the four Gospels and yet it is only half of the great Lucan writing. Originally it was joined to Acts as part of a two-volume work that in length constitutes over one-quarter of the New Testament. This whole narrative blends together the story of Jesus and that of the early church.

By the end of the 2nd century, this book was attributed to Luke, the companion of Paul. That means that he was not an eyewitness to the events from the life of Jesus. Instead, he relies upon the testimony of others who recorded the events. These are Mark’s gospel, a list of Jesus’ sayings, and proper Lucan materials. The gospel was composed around the year 80 after Christ and it was addressed to a largely Gentile area evangelized directly or indirectly by Pauline mission.

The whole flow of Luke-Acts covers salvation history. The Gospel comes after the stage of the Law and the Prophets. By divine providence, a Gospel that had its beginning in Jerusalem, the capital of Judaism ultimately came to Rome, the capital of the Gentile world (in Acts). Thus, the Gentiles who received the gospel were always part of God’s plan reaching back to creation.