The Gospel as Sacrament

Recently I have begun to ask myself whether the church should see the reading of the gospel as a sacrament.  If a sacrament is the outward visible sign of an inward invisible and spiritual grace, then reading the gospel surely fulfils this criterion.  The gospel is not only the good news of Christ:  Christ is the gospel in himself.

(image from Byzantine Texas)

In a sacrament, an outward sign is a physical one.  The bread and wine of the Eucharist enter our physical bodies to nourish us both bodily and spiritually.  The water of baptism is poured on our physical heads (or we are immersed in it completely) as a sign of our inner cleansing, turning away from wrongdoing and giving ourselves to Christ.

So can a similar case be made for the reading of the gospel?  When the gospel is read, the good news of Christ enters our physical body through our ears and progresses to mind and heart and spirit, with a holy influence that impacts our lives.  Not only this, but the gospel carries within itself the seeds of the sacraments, acting as a sacred root to the trunk, branches and leaves of the body of the church, which is the body of Christ, sustained and fed by him.  Surely the gospel is the foundation on which stands everything else:  our knowledge of and encounter with Christ and with all he said and did, and  still says to us today.

If this is so, then the deacon reading the gospel is truly participating in the most fundamental sacrament of all.  We read the word of God in a way that proclaims the living, truthful and real presence of the Lord Jesus, from the gospel of his own self, from which all else springs.

As I pondered this, I came across this Catholic article.  I would be most interested to know what you think.

Hearing the Word of God

“When the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church, God himself speaks to his people, and Christ, present in his word, proclaims the Gospel” (GIRM, no. 29).

These words from the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) set before us a profound truth that we need to ponder and make our own. The words of Sacred Scripture are unlike any other texts we will ever hear, for they not only give us information, they are the vehicle God uses to reveal himself to us, the means by which we come to know the depth of God’s love for us, and the responsibilities entailed by being Christ’s followers, members of his Body. What is more, this Word of God proclaimed in the liturgy possesses a special sacramental power to bring about in us what it proclaims. The Word of God proclaimed at Mass is ‘efficacious’ that is, it not only tells us of God and God’s will for us, it also helps us to put that will of God into practice in our own lives. How, then, do we respond to this wonderful gift of God’s Word? We respond in word and song, in posture and gesture, in silent meditation and, most important of all, by listening attentively to that Word as it is proclaimed. Following each reading we express our gratitude for this gift with the words “Thanks be to God” or, in the case of the Gospel, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ,” and it is appropriate that a brief period of silence be observed to allow for personal reflection. Following the first reading we sing the Responsorial Psalm, a meditation on God’s word through the inspired words of one of the psalms from the psalter, the Bible’s prayer book.

The Gospel is the highpoint of the Liturgy of the Word. The readings from the Old Testament tell us of God’s promises and his preparation of his people for the coming of his Son; the epistles and other pre-Gospel New Testament readings offer the reflections of St. Paul and other contemporaries of the Lord on the life and message of Christ; in the Acts of the Apostles we have a history of the early Church. We believe that all Scripture, the Old and New Testaments, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Church has always given special honor to the Gospel because in the Gospel we have not simply the preparation for and prefiguring of Christ, nor reflections on his message, but the words and deeds of Christ himself. The proclamation of the Gospel is surrounded with marks of respect and honor: the Gospel is read by an ordained minister, the deacon, or, when no deacon is present, by a priest; the Book of the Gospels is carried aloft with honor in the entrance procession and placed on the altar until the Gospel reading to show the unity of Scripture and Eucharist, of the table of the Word and the table of the Christ’s body and blood; just before the Gospel is read the Gospel book is carried in procession to the ambo to the accompaniment of an acclamation sung by the people; it may be incensed before the reading and is kissed at its conclusion; finally, all stand as the Gospel is proclaimed. Through this posture and through the honor paid to the book containing the Gospel, the Church pays homage to Christ who is present in his Word and who proclaims his Gospel.

What, then, must we do to properly receive the Word of God proclaimed at Mass?  The General Instruction tells us that “the readings from the Word of God are to be listened to reverently by everyone” (no. 29), and it provides that those who read the Scriptures at Mass must be “truly suited to carrying out this function and carefully prepared, so that by their hearing the readings from the sacred texts the faithful may conceive in their hearts a sweet and living affection for Sacred Scripture” (no. 101).

The key word in all of this is listening. We are called to listen attentively as the reader, deacon or priest proclaims God’s Word. Unless one is unable to hear, one should not be reading along with a text from a missal or missalette. Rather, taking our cue from the General Instruction itself, we should listen as we would if Christ himself were standing at the ambo, for in fact it is God who speaks when the Scriptures are proclaimed. Carefully following along with the printed word can cause us to miss the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit, the message that the Spirit may have for us in one of the passages because we are anxious to “keep up,” to move along with the reader.

Perhaps the best way to understand the readings at Mass and our response to them is offered by Saint John Paul II in his Instruction Dies Domini. . . . He encourages “those who take part in the Eucharist—priest, ministers and faithful… to prepare the Sunday liturgy, reflecting beforehand upon the word of God which will be proclaimed” and adds that if we do not, “it is difficult for the liturgical proclamation of the word of God alone to produce the fruit we might expect” (no. 40). In this way we will till the soil, preparing our souls to receive the seeds to be planted by the Word of God so that seed may bear fruit.

The Word of God, then calls for our listening and our response in silent reflection, as well as in word and song. Most important of all, the Word of God, which is living and active, calls each of us individually and all of us together for a response that moves beyond the liturgy itself and affects our daily lives, leading us to engage fully in the task of making Christ known to the world by all that we do and say.