If we find the word of God, it is a life-changing event. Jeremiah exclaimed: "When I found Your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart" (Jer 15:16). By finding God's word, we do not mean finding a copy of the Bible or parts of the Bible as Hilkiah did. We mean finding God's word from the Church and her Scriptures "not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God" (1 Thes 2:13). To find God's word means to be approved by God as "the lowly and afflicted [one] who trembles at" His word (Is 66:2).

Because the Lord wants us to find His word and abide in it (Jn 8:31), the devil tries to make us disrespect, trivialize, and disobey God's word so that we will never find it, or lose it if we have ever found it. Our secular humanistic culture of death denies and questions that there is such a thing as objective truth. Even those who believe in some objective truth sometimes say the Church and her Bible are out-of-date and need not be obeyed, declaring that we are to "think for ourselves." They say we should not rigidly maintain that God's word is objective truth which all are responsible to obey. These diseased attitudes undermine the truth and authority of God's word. Reject these attitudes. Joyfully cling to the freedom which comes from finding and living the truth of God's word (see Jn 8:32).

Nihil Obstat:  Reverend Robert A. Stricker, December 13, 2003

Imprimatur:  †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, December 18, 2003