LOVING GOD AND KEEPING HIS WORD

More than 10 years ago, email was the craze. Everybody had an email address and forwarded messages that filled the limited mailboxes. Nowadays, email has been replaced by social networking sites which offer much more, in real time. One can now post continuous messages. One hears a blow-by-blow account of someone else’s thoughts and escapades. A plethora of words flood cyberspace, not to mention the billions of text messages (SMS) that send telecom companies in the Philippines laughing their way to the banks. But words are cheap (though not quite in the Philippines where a text message costs a P1.50 or more). Words have become so commonplace. We hear them, read them, text them, twit them and google them. But in many cases, we don’t keep them, for one simple reason. Words have been truncated from their source and ultimate object — the person, who is definitely bigger, more noble and more important than the words he or she can utter, or the words that can be uttered about him or her. Curiously, the good news today would have us put back that intimate link between word and person. The words that one utters stand for the truth about the person, the truth within the person, and the truth that is the person. Words, taken apart from the person as subject or object, are just letters put together,maybe “full of sound and fury, [but] signifying nothing.” The core of the good news has to do with the Divine Word, uttered from the beginning, the Word become Flesh, second person of the Trinity. Word and Person are intimately united in Christ. As Word of God, He is one with the Father, and was true to His nature as God, true to the Father. We are called to the same oneness and intimacy and to be incorporated in Christ so as to become sharers in this Trinitarian life and mystery. But we need to do our part. “If you love me, you will keep my Word.” Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB   Reflection Question: Am I careful with the words that I speak about a person?   Lord, tame my tongue so that I may never hurt anyone with the words that I speak.   St. Crispin of Viterbo, pray for us.