Reflection - Living the word

20.07.2009

Three seminarians were discussing the relative merits of different translations of the Bible. One argued for the New Revised Standard Version. "It's closer," he said, "to the original Hebrew and Greek." Another preferred the New Jerusalem Bible: the layout made it very readable and he found the notes superb. The third student said that his choice was undoubtedly his mother's translation. They looked askance at him. "I didn't know your mother had translated the Bible," one of them said. "Oh yes, indeed," he replied. "She translates it into action!"

We all know people who, often unknown to themselves, like that seminarian's mother, bring the Scriptures to life. Not that they go about preaching or teaching, unless that is their calling, but in their ordinary everyday lives they convey something of the unconditional, all-forgiving, all-accepting love of God to others. Their wholeness, and that indiscriminate caring and non-judgmental acceptance of the men and women they meet on the way, mark them out as people who are free from the narcissistic values that so bedevil today's society. Theirs is a broader vision, an indefinable wisdom that energizes their lives, that guides their journey.

"You are a letter of Christ, written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets that are hearts of flesh" (2 Cor 3:3). You may be the only letter that some people will read today. You are the 'good news' for them, hope for them, compassion and peace. Like that seminarian's mother, you become the best of translators.

People will read, not words written on a page but the life-giving words of your heart. The closer you are to God, the clearer is your translation. Think of Mother Teresa, Brother Roger of Taizé, Chiara Lubich. Think too of the neighbour who helps you with a difficult child, the stranger who stops to assist you up when you stumble in the street, the teenager who helps in a soup kitchen, the people who work for and with the homeless.

"The world is charged with the glory of God," the Jesuit poet G. M. Hopkins wrote. Everything is tingling with this glory, calling us to wonder, nudging us into a deeper awareness of the ordinary, unspectacular events of our day. Here we will find a richness, a heart-ease hidden from the unreflective, sensation-seekers of our time.

It takes courage and commitment to step aside for a time each day and, with the grace of the Spirit, attend to what is really going on in our life.

But when we take this step and begin to live more deliberately, with a listening ear and a responsive heart, life becomes, richer, deeper and our relationships stronger and more blessed.

Not that there won't be down times and darkness; often we will be faced with real hardship, family crisis, loss of employment and chronic illness.  But when we trust, we will come through with grace and with hope. And it may be that, because of you, someone gets a glimpse of, or hears, the living word of God today.
 

Sr Redempta Twomey is assistant editor of the Far East at St Columban's, Navan, Ireland.