Raniero Cantalamessa : The
Mystery of God’s Word
The Liturgical Press, 1994
(tr from Italian)
Alison Morgan November 2007
Short book (92pp) containing 8 talks on different aspects of
the Word of God. Brilliant!
1.
Jesus began to preach
- the mystery of the Word of God in
salvation history.
After
his baptism, Jesus began to preach about repentance. What concerns us is not so
much the things about which God speaks to us, as the fact that he does speak to
us. Ps 50.1, the Lord has spoken. The Word of God should never become a mere
object, but remain the subject speaking to us with divine authority. God
speaks; yet we need to pray to him that he would speak to us – 1 Sam 3.9,
‘speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’. Song of Songs: ‘let us hear your
voice!’.
‘Jesus
began to preach’ – at a specific point in time; autumn of AD 27 to spring of AD
30). It’s the time of the preaching of the kingdom, which preceded the Passion
– the gospels have been described as ‘passion-narratives with extended
introductions. This means that the apostles regarded what Jesus said as
indispensable for an understanding of what he did.
Heb
1.1-2 – ‘in times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors
through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through the Son’.
Jesus seems to speak on his own account, rather than as a commentator on others
(the usual rabbinic practice). Cf Matt 5.12 (you have heard that it was said –
but I say to you), Mark 1.22 (he taught as one having authority, not as the
scribes), John 7.46 (no one has ever spoken like this man). The key word used
of him is ‘authority’.
And
yet Jesus insisted his teaching was not his own but God’s (John 7.16, 14.24).
It is his Father’s; and yet he and the Father are one (Jn 10.30). Mt 11.27 says
‘no one knows the Father except the Son’ – ie no one could now there was a
Father, that God is a Father, before Jesus revealed it. We have a new prophetic
message.
Jesus
read Isaiah and said the scripture was fulfilled (Lk 4.21); not just this one,
but all of them (2 Cor 1.19). The Lamb who receives the book and breaks open
its seals (Rev 5-6) is a plastic image conveying that by his death Jesus has
made the scriptures his own and only he can completely explain them. They have
become his book. So even the law, prophets and psalms speak of him. The writer
to the Hebrews applied the psalm ‘today, if you hear his voice, do not harden
your hearts’ to Christians (Heb 3.11). How do we listen? The Word has ceased to
exist as event but continues to exist as sacrament. In the OT the Word (dabar)
is a word-event, a word that creates a situation, that sets off something new
in history. The word-events continue till John the Baptist (Luke 3.1) and then
stop; instead of the word coming down, the word is made flesh. We never meet
the phrase ‘the word of God came to Jesus’ because he IS the word of God. John
of the Cross said God had spoken to us once and for all by giving us his Son;
nothing is left to reveal. Jesus is thus
the final event of the Word of God in history; he is that word ‘issuing forth
from the mouth of God’ that, like the rain, has come down upon the earth and
watered it so it can bear seed to sow and bread to eat, and, once everything
has been completed that God sent him to do, returns to him, saying to the
Father, ‘I have accomplished the work you gave me to do’. (Is 55, Jn 17).
The Word’s stint in history closes with the ascension; but the Spirit that was
at work in it lasts forever. There will be no more word-events in the Church;
but there are word-sacraments. Word sacraments are God’s word in the bible,
which become active reality every time the church proclaims them and the Spirit
rekindles them in the hearts of those who hear them.
Augustine
says the sacrament is ‘a word that you see’ (verbum visibile) and the word is
‘a sacrament that you hear’ (sacramentum audibile). The Word we read is a
material sign; but through faith and the HS we enter through these signs into
contact with the living truth and the will of God. The word of God can catch
fire.
2. Go and proclaim the gospel
- the Word
of God in the Church
We
can’t exhaust the fountain of water which is the word, or capture it; only
drink repeatedly.
1. The Church is borne by the Word
The
Word of God has now become the Word of Christ.
Deut
32.47 ‘this word is your life’. Israel
is borne by the word of God - when all other resources fail during the exile,
the Word appears as the unique support.
The
Church is the house built on the rock, and the rock is the Word (Mt 7.25). It
is presented as a living reality, which grows, spreads, gains influence (Acts
6.7; 12.24; 19.20). Paul says it sounds forth like a shout (1 Thess 1.8).
When
the NT says Christians have been born anew through the living Word of God (1
Pet 1.23; James 1.18), it means they have begun living in contact with this
mysterious force which is the Word.
Ambrose:
the Word of God is the vital sustenance
of the soul; it feeds it, pastures it, and guides it; nothing can keep the
human soul alive except the Word of God. In ancient times, the 10 Words
(debarim) were kept in the Ark.
2. The Church bears the Word
The
Church is the new ark, keeping the words safe. It does this through apostolic
tradition, ‘the understanding attached to the Scriptures by the Church’. It’s
like bread already chewed by the tradition. Tradition is not dead, but alive; a
living reality (Word) cannot be kept in dead surroundings. ‘Outside the living
environment of Tradition, the Scriptures would be a dead body, a book like any
other.. to be studied with all the rigor of the historico-philological method
and nothing more’. Keeping it alive is the Church’s duty.
3. Servants of the Word
We
have to live what we preach – not recommend a liner whilst following in a
lifeboat. Preaching is easy; practising is hard. Russian saint Serafim used to
say that preaching is as easy as throwing stones form the top of a church
tower, whereas putting into practice is as hard as carrying stones to the top
of the tower on your back. We should only throw the stones we have carried up.
If we can’t – most of us can’t – then humility is the key; ‘I am the voice of
one crying’..
4. But the Word of God is not chained!
2
Tim 2.9 – that’s what matters. We can be chained; it isn’t.
3.
When I found your words…
- The Word
in the life of the proclaimer
1
Kings 19 – we mustn’t conclude that the Word always comes as a whisper rather
than wind, earthquake, fire. It’s about how Elijah receives it – and that it is
then transformed within him, and pours out on the people as fire and thunder
(cp Sir 48.1). Elijah is the prototype and symbol of those who proclaim the
Word of God.
The
Word of God comes from silence – the silence of a void, the silence of
Nazareth. Sending out the disciples, Jesus told them to greet no one on the way
(Lk 10.4); the Word of God has to be kept distinct from human words. We are
vessels (2 Cor 4.7). Augustine: ‘suppose God wanted to fill you with honey; if
you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?’ Would you proclaim the
Word of God? You have to get it each time from the arms of the Crucified.
Joy
characterises the moment of meeting between proclaimer and Word – Jer 15.16.
Scripture describes it as a book offered to be eaten – eg Ezek 2.9-3.3. In Rev
10.8-10 it turns sour in the stomach – due to the nature of the particular
message. There is a difference between reading and swallowing a book. We aren’t
decanting it; we are incarnating it. That can be tough – cp 2 Cor 4.12, death
in us, life in you. There are 2 reasons – first is sin (Isaiah 6.5, unclean
lips; 1 Tim 1.15 Paul). James says the Word is like a mirror (James 1.23) or a
sword – we have to look at ourselves in the mirror, and use the sword on
ourselves. Second reason is that if God’s love for humanity runs through us, so
does his pain. And that’s hard to keep in – cp Elijah, Jeremiah (4.19, 6.11).
4.
We preach Christ Jesus as Lord
- The content
of Christian preaching
2
Corinthians is the letter about preaching. The change from the age of Jesus
preaching to the age of Jesus preached occurred at the resurrection. Jeremiah
wrote his prophecies on a scroll which the king burned. God told him to rewrite
it and keep it safe. This is a type of Jesus. The gospel is the scroll dictated
by God through Jesus; human beings erased the scroll on the cross, but God has
rewritten it by raising Jesus from the dead. He is as powerful now as he was
before his death.
The
word of God acts just by being heard (Rom 10.17; parable of sower). The power
contained in the name of Jesus becomes active through the faith of the
proclaimer; so relationship with Jesus is the key. ‘Human beings are not
converted by having truths about Jesus present to them but by having Jesus
himself presented to them’ – they are asking, as some Greeks asked the
apostles, ‘we want to see Jesus’ – John 12.21.
5.
For every careless word…
- Word of
God and words of ours
Matt
12.36 – on the DofJ people will render an account for every careless word they
speak’. Verbum otiosum – what does he
mean? The Gk word is argon,
ineffective (a + ergos, ie not-working). Not hard to see what Jesus meant if we
compare this adjective with the one in the Bible that constantly characterizes
the Word of God: energes –
‘efficacious’, that which works, produces a result (ergos). It’s the same adj which produces the word ‘energetic’. Eg 1
Thess 2.13, they have heard the word of God not as human words but as the Word
of God which is at work in those who believe. The difference between the Word
of God and human words is the difference between the Word that works and the
word that does not, between the efficacious Word and the empty word. The Word
of God is living and effective – energes
– Heb 4.12.
So
the useless word we will have to account for is not any old useless word – it’s
the empty word uttered by people who ought to be uttering the ‘energetic’ words
of God. It’s the word of the false prophet, drawn from within himself. It’s
sterile. It does not act. God’s word is not like this, it’s like fire, like a
hammer – cf Jer 23.16, 28-30).
False
prophets are those who falsify the word of God (2 Cor 2.17, 4.2) – the word
Paul uses means ‘water down’. They dilute and weaken it in the thousands of
words issuing from their own hearts. I falsify it when I dress it up, don’t
allow it to live in me. We are meant to turn the water into wine, not wine into
water, into dead letter and idle chatter. Cp Rom 1.16, 2 Tim 2.15-16.
How can the world perceive the energetic Word of God from the hubbub of
useless words emanating from the Church? People ask us for bread, and we give
them stones.
Jesus
never said useless words. His words were all Spirit and life (Jn 6.63). Paul
rails against those who seek to dissolve the kerygma of the cross into words of
human wisdom (1 Cor). The Word of God revolts against being turned into
ideology – what is left once the current from the Word of God has been cut off,
once it’s been unplugged from the personal reality of God. We use it to support
our projects; the reverse is true.
The
Word of God is rare in these days (cp 1 Sam 3.1). What we need is not biblical
quotations but prophetic words, words emerging from suffering and prayer, which
bring the hearer face to face with the presence and lordship of Christ. So
Peter: ‘whoever p[reaches, let it be with the words of God’ – 1 Pe 4.11. Who is
qualified for this? no one – 2 Cor 2.16, 2 Cor 4.7. We hold the treasure in
earthen vessels.
6.
You will receive power from the Holy Spirit
- the Holy
Spirit and the proclamation of the Word
Acts
1.7-8. The inner reality of evangelisation, its soul, is the HS. The
fundamental rule of Christian proclamation is to preach Christ in the Holy
Spirit.
1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
Jesus’
preaching began after his baptism, Luke 4. That is why he receives the Spirit.
Isaiah 11.4: he shall strike the ruthless
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the
wicked. When he speaks, Satan falls like a thunderbolt from the sky; demons
are as though scorched by his words and come out crying ‘you have come to
destroy us!’. The Spirit also gifts Jesus not to become dejected.
What
happened in Jesus happens now in the Body. Acts lives out the same proclamation
– the Spirit has anointed me to bring good news to the poor! Jesus had said the
Spirit would give his apostles an ‘irresistible’ word (Lk 21.15, Matt 10.20; Mk
13.11). Stephen’s adversaries ‘could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit
with which he spoke’ (Acts 6.10). See also Acts 5.32 – we are witnesses of
these things, as is the holy Spirit that God has given to those who obey him.
So evangelisation is the result of the human, visible testimony of the
apostles/the Church, and the divine, invisible testimony of the Spirit acting
behind it. An evangelisation without the quickening breath of the HS is like a
sharp sword which is left aside and never brandished. It will not cut to the
heart (Heb 4.12, Eph 6.17).
2. The silence of the Spirit
Paul
warned against preaching words of human wisdom (1 Cor 2.5). Precisely what he
feared has become about – even though our wisdom is of a theological type… Addresses
based on human wisdom are persuasive and ask for intellectual assent; Christian
preaching claims assent of a spiritual order, not of the letter. We in the West
have witnessed a massive relapse into the letter and the flesh. Rationalism
prevails and demands the message be presented in dialectical form – ie,
subjected to discussion and research so it can fit into the general,
philosophically acceptable picture of an effort on the part of human nature to
understand itself and the universe. Research, and not truth, has become the
absolute – God is accepted on condition he be a God who is researched but never
found, and Jesus on condition he be a revealer of God but not the revelation of
God. We dislike certainty because it demands a response. Obedience is the real
issue… So the idea has taken precedence over reality and over life; idealism is
the result. We might compare the Enlightenment centuries with the 2 or 3
centuries of silence which preceded the coming of Jesus.
3. A new Pentecost
Joy
– this is changing. In Vatican II Pope John XXIII prayed for a new Pentecost
for the Church, and said ‘The Holy Spirit
is the source and motor of renewal in Christ’s Church’. His predecessor
Paul VI had emphasized the role of the HS in the work of evangelisation.
But
it’s not enough to talk about the HS. He is not ‘an idea or a theme, which we
scatter here and there in our addresses as one would sugar on a pudding’; he is
‘the invisible force permeating all from within’. How do we let him act?
·
Obedience – when we surrender ourselves to God, he surrenders himself
and entrusts us with his Spirit and his power. ‘The power of the Spirit in the
proclaimer is proportionate to the harshness of the cross that individual
carries’.
·
Prayer – in prayer and on our knees we should ask God to reveal to us
the word he has selected and stored in his heart for a particular situation and
people, and after this, at our desk, we should put all our culture and
experience at the service of this word
·
Community – living contact with a praying community is most important,
in which the gifts of the Spirit are lived and exercised. Eg Acts, Peter and
John are forbidden to preach by the Sanhedrin, and it’s only the following
prayer meeting which realises the witness must continue (Acts 4).
7.
Welcome the Word
- The word
of God in the personal life of the Christian
There
are 3 fundamental levels of the Word – historical (the Word-event, chaps 1-2),
sacramental (the Word-sacrament, Word as it acts in the Church today, 3-6) and
moral (Word as moral and spiritual principle and guide for the believer 7-8).
James
urges us to be doers, not hearers only (James 1). Peter calls the Word imperishable seed, pure milk (1 Pet 1). See
also Rom 2.13 and the parable of the sower. We are to welcome the Word; reflect
on the Word, put the Word into practice – 3 stages of the Christian journey.
Kierkegaard observes that if one were to wait, before allowing oneself to be
personally summoned by the Word, until one has solved all the problems
connected with the scriptural text, the variants, and the divergences of
opinion among the scholars, one would never be done. Indeed, such dallying
becomes a ruse to defend oneself against the Word of God. It’s been given so that we can put it into
practice, not so that we may exercise ourselves in exegesis of its obscurities
(!). The medieval monastics were specialists in the living of the Word. Gregory
the Great: ‘scripture is a letter from God Almighty to his creature; in it we
come to know God’s heart through God’s words’. St Francis used to spend his
nights repeating ‘Who are you, Lord, and who am I?’.
Kierkegaard
– suppose the mirror of God reveals a bad habit (gambling). If the gambler says
to himself ‘I shall never gamble again’ he is lost. If he says ‘I will be
allowed to gamble for the rest of my life, but not tonight’, then he will not
gamble any more. The Word of God becomes the instrument that prunes our lives –
his resolve comes from the work of the Spirit in him today, not from the
arrogance of his heart.
8. The letter brings death but the Spirit gives life
- The
spiritual interpretation of the Bible
The
Spirit works within the sacred writer, so that he can welcome the Word of God
and incarnate it in human language – as Mary does with the Word which becomes
flesh in her. The Fathers said God is like a musician who touches the strings
of the lyre and makes it vibrate; the sound is the work of the musician, but
would not exist but for the strings. In the case of scripture, God moves not
inanimate strings but free ones (the will, mind). We talk about the inerrancy
of scripture – but biblical inspiration is the basis for much more than the
mere (negative) inerrancy of the Word of God; it’s the basis for its
inexhaustibility, its divine force and vitality.
The
bible is theopneustos,
inspired/breathed by God. This is not passive but active. The scriptures
present God’s word in unalterable form, and make the voice of the Spirit sound
again and again in the words of the prophets and apostles (Dei verbum conciliar constitution). Gregory the Great said the Word
of God was like a flint, cold to the touch; but when struck by the steel it
gives off sparks and lights the fire. The words of scripture stay cold if one
limits them to their literal meaning, but if inspired by the Lord one strikes
with an attentive mind, they will give vent to the fire of mystic meanings.
How
do we approach the scriptures so as to release the Spirit that they contain? We
can’t discover the spirit in scripture except through the letter, by way of the
concrete human dress that the Word of God has assumed in the various books and
inspired authors. We can’t discover the divine meaning except by setting out
from the human meaning, the intention of the author. So study and research pays
dividends, as long as we don’t stop there. We are experiencing the danger of
reducing scripture to a single dimension; of admiring the mirror, concentrating
on the letter (James) instead of reading the word. Many scholars confine
themselves to the historico-critical method. Yet to claim to understand it by
studying it exclusively with the instrument of historico-philological analysis
is like claiming to discover what the Eucharist is through a chemical analysis
of the consecrated host. It represents the first step only.
If
you don’t use a limb for a long time, it needs exercise before it can be used
again. So it is with us; we need retraining in how to use the Bible. Reading
the scriptures without the Holy Spirit would be like opening a book in the
dark.
Tradition
is a sounding board for scripture - like the body of a violin in which the
sound takes shape. What would be the point of the Song of Songs, without the
resonance it has acquired in the liturgy and spirituality of the Church?
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