date: 25.03.2021.
After the reflections given by Fr. Marinko Šakota and Fr. Stanko Mabić, Fr. Ante Vuckovic will present us the sixth Lenten reflection. The theme is the Word of God.
For a long time, God has established the relationship with us, people, in the most profound way by using our language and revealing to us, in our language, His existence and being. The peak of all is that the Word of God – logos – was incarnated and dwelt among us, lived with us, so the encounter with the Word of God is always the encounter with the most profound mystery of our human relationship with God and His, relationship, His will to remain in communication with us.
The Word of God is important to us because we, even prior to our encounter with it, we may have intuition that it is different than our word. The word of God creates. We, with our words can do much, but we cannot create in the way God can. God’s word feeds our spirit as the food feeds out body, and this may be one of the important metaphors for the Word of God. We find this with the prophet Ezekiel who says: „Son of man, eat what you find here! Eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel…“ (Ez 3:1) The food comes to us as the strength that we live from. In this way, the Word of God becomes the force for our spirit, we act from it, said Fr. Ante Vučković, referring to the quotes from the Bible that present the Word of God as unchangeable, permanent, objective, eternal...
Fra. Ante said that ‘’countless people have changed their way of life in the encounter with the Word of God and in those moments, sometimes it takes only one word. It is sufficient for me to understand that this word was meant for me and the change takes place immediately’’.
St. Anthony the Hermit and St. Augustine are just some whose lives were changed by one word they heard.
''Perhaps something similar happened in your life too, perhaps there are those Words of God that touch the deepest strings of your being – we notice all the drama of human life, all the layers. We see that in those moments there is a turning point, as if we were born again. Some say that they were awaken by the Word, but most of the people are emotionally touched. Those are all good reasons to read the Word of God, to take it as a daily food'', said Fr. Ante giving the example of 'knowing oneself’ as one of the main reasons to read the Word of God and he asked 'What happens when we get to know ourselves in front of the mirror of God’s Word?'
''It happens that I discover my sins and His mercy at the same time. I can see my wretched parts, my illnesses, my needs and at the same time, I discover His desire to heal me. It happens that I taste my own tears and sorrow and God’s will to console me at the same time. It happens that I discover my lost ways and find Him searching for me. It happens that I realise my self-deceptions, but He wants me to get to know myself in His truth. It happens that I discover my mortality, my limits, but in His word I find out that he wishes to give me life, eternal, never passing life”, explained Fr. Ante Vučković and at the end of this week’s reflection he answered the question: Why should we be reading the Word of God?
''We should read the Word of God so we would make this world better, to protect it from ourselves, to learn about our relationships, to mend them in a better way, to learn whom we are, to get to know ourselves, to be fed with God’s love and to allow hope blossom in the moments when it is hard for us – hope that comes from God’s will to be with us, to remain in communication with us. In that way we would discover similarities of our inner nature with God. We are creatures just like He is, who desire to be in the relationship, who are made to communicate. God’s Word was given to us to keep that relationship alive.''
The entire Lenten reflection of Fr. Ante Vučković, along with the Gregorian chants of Fr. Zvonimir Pavičić, is available HERE.
