BUILT ON THE WORD

The Church is built upon the word of God; she is born from and lives by that word... The People of God has always found strength in the word of God, and today too the ecclesial community grows by hearing, celebrating and studying that word.

THE WORD AND THE SPIRIT

Just as the word of God comes to us in the body of Christ, in His Eucharistic body and in the body of the Scriptures, through the working of the Holy Spirit, so too it can only be truly received and understood through that same Spirit.

OPEN TO THE SPIRIT

... We cannot come to understand the meaning of the word unless we are open to the working of the Paraclete in the Church and in the hearts of believers.

RESPOND WITH FAITH

The proper human response to the God Who speaks is faith. Here we see clearly that in order to accept revelation, man must open his mind and heart to the working of the Holy Spirit Who enables him to understand the word of God present in the sacred Scriptures... (Proposito 4)

TOTAL COMMITMENT TO JESUS

It is the preaching of the divine word, ... which gives rise to faith, whereby we give our heartfelt assent to the truth which has been revealed to us and we commit ourselves entirely to Christ: faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from the word of Christ (Rom 10:17).

COMPLETELY UNMASKED

Sacred Scripture shows how man's sin is essentially disobedience and refusal to hear. The radical obedience of Jesus even to His death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8) completely unmasks this sin.

MARY AND GODS WORD

In our day the faithful need to be helped to see more clearly the link between Mary of Nazareth and the faith-filled hearing of Gods word... Mary is the image of the Church in attentive hearing of the word of God ... Mary also symbolizes openness to God and others; an active listening which interiorizes and assimilates, one in which the word becomes a way of life.

NEVER FORGET

We must never forget that all authentic and living Christian spirituality is based on the word of God proclaimed, accepted, celebrated and meditated upon in the Church.

(Source: Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini, 9/30/11)