The following quotation is from an address delivered
by Benedict XVI back on October 6, 2008 that I found to be quite insightful and
inspiring:
At the beginning of our Synod the Liturgy of the Hours
presents a passage from Psalm 118 on the Word of God: a praise of his Word, an
expression of the joy of Israel in learning it and, in it, to recognize his
will and his Face. I would like to meditate on some verses of this Psalm with
you.
It begins like this: "In aeternum, Domine,
verbum tuum constitutum est in caelo... firmasti terram, et
permanet". This refers to the solidity of the Word. It is solid,
it is the true reality on which one must base one's life. Let us remember the
words of Jesus who continues the words of this Psalm: "Heaven and earth
will pass away, but my words will never pass away". Humanly speaking, the
word, my human word, is almost nothing in reality, a breath. As soon as it is
pronounced it disappears. It seems to be nothing. But already the human word
has incredible power. Words create history, words form thoughts, the thoughts
that create the word. It is the word that forms history, reality.
Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of
everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this
reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can
touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon
on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for
building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand
builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money.
Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away.
We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is
nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count
on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on
these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only
the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the
heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our
concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in
this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the
one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first
verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the
foundation of our life, how to build life.
The following verse says: "Omnia serviunt
tibi". All things come from the Word, they are products of the Word.
"In the beginning was the Word". In the beginning the heavens spoke.
And thus reality was born of the Word, it is "creatura Verbi".
All is created from the Word and all is called to serve the Word. This means
that all of creation, in the end, is conceived of to create the place of
encounter between God and his creature, a place where the history of love
between God and his creature can develop. "Omnia serviunt
tibi". The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor
planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which
happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive
for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist, the encounter
between God and his creature. In this sense, salvation history, the
Covenant, precedes creation. During the Hellenistic period, Judaism developed
the idea that the Torah would have preceded the creation of
the material world. This material world seems to have been created solely to
make room for the Torah, for this Word of God that creates the
answer and becomes the history of love. The mystery of Christ already is
mysteriously revealed here. This is what we are told in the Letter to the
Ephesians and to the Colossians: Christ is the protòtypos, the
first-born of creation, the idea for which the universe was conceived. He
welcomes all. We enter in the movement of the universe by uniting with Christ.
One can say that, while material creation is the condition for the history of
salvation, the history of the Covenant is the true cause of the cosmos. We
reach the roots of being by reaching the mystery of Christ, his living word
that is the aim of all creation.
"Omnia serviunt tibi". In
serving the Lord we achieve the purpose of being, the purpose of our own
existence. Let us take a leap forward: "Mandata tua
exquisivi". We are always searching for the Word of God. It is
not merely present in us. Just reading it does not mean necessarily that we
have truly understood the Word of God. The danger is that we only see the human
words and do not find the true actor within, the Holy Spirit. We do not find
the Word in the words. [Bold emphasis mine - entire address HERE]
Grace and peace,
David
