We are entering a new year, and it is a blessing to be able to be alive. A new year should also open the way to a year of grace through the celebration of the Jubilee 2025. Will this jubilee year help me grow in my love for Jesus? Have I already made resolutions to grow in my spiritual life, in my vocation, or in my consecration?
The world needs people who live the Word of God. How much problems would be solved if everyone actively lived the Word of God! How many families would be at peace if all members lived the Word of God! How many parents would be happy with their children if they were eager to live the Word of God! How flourishing our parish communities would be if choirs, liturgical and other groups lived the Word of God! How wonderful it would be if all Christians were true practitioners of the Word of God! What happiness, peace, and joy would radiate in the world! The world needs a new revolution; that of the Word put into practice. This is what the members of the Word of God groups aspire to. This is the spirituality of the Incarnation.
The Spirituality of the Incarnation consists of allowing Jesus to dwell in every member who lives the Word of God. The Virgin Mary welcomes the Word of God within her. She bears Jesus, raises Him, and offers Him to the world, and it is Jesus who saves the world. If Jesus lives in us, if He is present in us, then He will continue to save the members of His body and give them life because “God wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tm 2:4). This is the core, the basis of the Spirituality of the Incarnation. “It is no longer I who live; it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Letting Jesus live in us is our spirituality. Jesus says: “Whoever loves me will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home in him” (Jn 14:21-23). When I accept the Word of God, when I live it, when I say ‘yes’ to God, Jesus comes to live in me. In this wise, Pope Benedict XVI says in Verbum Domini: “Christ comes to dwell in our lives. Every Christian who believes, reminds us Saint Ambrose, conceives and gives birth in some way to the Word of God within himself: if there is only one Mother of Christ according to the flesh, on the other hand, according to faith, Christ is the fruit of all. Therefore, what happened to Mary can happen in each one of us every day, through listening of the Word of God and through the celebration of the sacraments.”
We consider that living the Word of God is like a magnet that attracts Jesus in us. He becomes present in us as at the Incarnation. Pope John Paul II says that the Incarnation is the greatest miracle in history (Rosarium Virginis Mariae). Every Christian who lives the Word experiences the same thing. When Jesus lives in us, everything we do for Him, such as evangelization, has a strong inner energy and a new fervour. Pope Paul VI says that one of the greatest obstacles to evangelization is the lack of fervour (Evangeli Nuntiandi). And even if we do not open our mouths to preach or to share, Jesus living in us does so: He touches, He saves, silently within us. He goes wherever we go, doing good (cf. Acts 10:38). When the Virgin Mary, already bearing Jesus within her, visits her cousin Elizabeth, she, upon Mary’s greetings, is filled with the Holy Spirit. The child within her is infused with the Holy Spirit. What God expects from us is to embody His word, to live His Word. Often, we do too many things for God without Jesus dwelling in us. Then we are like empty, clanging cymbals. We do not bear much fruit.
Like the Virgin Mary, our main task is to live the Word of God. “My task, Lord, is to keep your Word” (Ps 119:57). If that is our task, we have to dedicate ourselves to it. We should be professionals of the Word of God put into practice in this jubilee year.
Henri Bayemi