3 February 2019
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
You must not forget what has happened to you, what you have done and where you have come from. Your own history holds sway over you, and that’s as it should be. Even if you have broken from your past self, the very breakage itself remains a part of you. In other words, you will be always be living your own story. The prophet Jeremiah looks at his story and says “the word of the Lord came to me” (Jer 1:4). In his writings, he opens up for us what that process looked like, and what it meant for him.
As for you: hasn’t the word of the Lord come to you, too? You have, if Romans 10:18 is correct: “But I ask, did they not hear? Certainly they did; for ‘Their voice has gone forth to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’” So, yes, the word of the Lord didcome to you, but do you understand what you have heard? Romans 10:19 asks this same question “But I ask, did not Israel understand?”
You must try to remember your own story and understand what it means. You must bear in mind how God’s word has come to you, and you must grow in your understanding of that word, just as Jeremiah did. Divine life is in that word.